Rainforest Trust

Rainforest Trust, formerly World Land Trust-US and World Parks Endowment is a US-based nonprofit environmental organization established December 8, 1988 in New York. In 2006, then World Parks Endowment affiliated itself with World Land Trust, a UK-based nonprofit environmental organization, and became World Land Trust-US, as both organizations were dedicated to minimizing their costs in order to allow donated funds to flow to real habitat conservation projects on the ground. On September 16th, 2013, as part of celebrating the organization's 25th anniversary, the World Land Trust-US changed its name to Rainforest Trust. Rainforest Trust continues its partnership with the World Land Trust in the UK.

Rainforest Trust aims to protect lands that conserve threatened species and endangered ecosystems, working largely in the rainforest and cloud forests of the Latin American tropics, the world's highest biodiversity priority. For this purpose, it privately funds the purchase of large tracts of land by local NGO's for the purposes of protecting it, in a fashion similar to the Nature Conservancy by making use of land trusts. The organization also seeks to help in-situ conservation measures by providing training, capital and equipment for environmental stewardship in economically impoverished areas. Rainforest Trust also offers to offset the carbon emissions of individuals and businesses .

Most purchases are made at an average of only $100 an acre. Since its founding, Rainforest Trust has saved and protected over 7,000,000 acres (28,000 km2) of tropical rainforest lands. A detailed chart of acres purchased can be found here: http://www.rainforesttrust.org/history-wlt-us-acres-saved/

Rainforest Trust's logo depicts a jaguar. The jaguar was chosen to represent the organization because it inhabits a large portion of Latin America and is found in nearly all of the organization's project sites. Jaguars also are powerful symbols of the untamed character of rainforests.

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