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Sky Rainforest Rescue

Help WWF and Sky save a billion trees in the Amazon

WWF has joined forces with Sky for an exciting campaign to help protect part of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Our target is to safeguard a billion trees, covering an area about the size of Belgium.

Amazon

Why we’re involved

The environmental importance of the world’s vast tropical rainforests is well known – both in terms of species diversity and for regulating the global climate. 

Rainforests are also a crucial source of lots of products we use and benefit from every day, including cocoa, nuts, fruit, timber and many medicines.

But deforestation from activities like illegal logging, clearance for cattle ranching and development of roads threatens the Amazon. Today an area the size of three football pitches is destroyed every minute.

Sky Rainforest Rescue is based in the state of Acre in western Brazil where we are pioneering a new initiative by working with local communities – including rubber tappers and farmers – to help make it more profitable to keep trees standing than to clear forest.

Celebrity supporter Lily Cole

How we’re helping

Sky Rainforest Rescue is supporting the Acre state government’s voluntary land certification scheme, which gives financial and technical support to farmers who commit not to deforest or use fire on their land, addressing the main cause of deforestation in the region. 

We’re also helping local producers to get fair prices and find new market opportunities for sustainable goods, like native rubber. Helping sustainable industries to flourish can promote development without leading to deforestation.

By working with local communities and supporting them to protect the forest where they live, we can help prevent further inroads into pristine forest.

The project is also helping to enhance Acre’s monitoring capabilities against threats facing the forests including illegal logging and forest clearance.

Just £20 could help save 1000 trees in the Amazon, along with the endangered animals that live there, such as the iconic jaguar. You can sponsor an acre of forest, adopt a jaguar or make a one-off donation today.

Jaguar

Helping people and wildlife

The Amazon is home to thousands of unique and wonderful animals, including howler monkeys, scarlet macaws, harpy eagles and giant otters. Many species are particularly rare and threatened, like the jaguar, three-toed sloth, manatee, yellow-spotted sideneck turtle, pink river dolphin and black caiman (a river alligator).

The forest is also a vital source of food, shelter and livelihoods for almost all the 30 million people who live in the region. The state of Acre itself is a well known producer and exporter of rubber and Brazil nuts

Indigenous family with sawn timber

Helping the fight against climate change

Deforestation is responsible for around 15% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – that’s comparable with all cars, planes and ships put together. Tackling forest loss must play an important part in how we fight global warming.

In the decade leading up to 2005, Acre lost around 60,000 hectares (an area twice the size of London) of forest every year. This is estimated to have generated around 22 million tons of CO2 emissions each year.

What you can do

You can support Sky Rainforest Rescue by making a donation today or by helping us to spread the word through our facebook group.  To get the latest updates from the ground, sign up to our e-newsletter and check out the latest news on our dedicated website.

Sky will also be airing a whole host of inspiring rainforest and environment programmes and documentaries over the three years of the campaign, so keep an eye on those TV listings.

Your donation really could make all the difference