What is Protect-an-Acre?
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) established the Protect-an-Acre Fund in 1993 as a tool to protect the world’s rainforests and the rights of their inhabitants by providing financial aid to traditionally under-funded organizations and communities in temperate, tropical and boreal forest regions. Protect-an-Acre projects prioritize gaining legal recognition of indigenous territories (a process called “demarcation”), establishment of protected reserves that recognize the rights of local communities, the development of locally-based alternative economic initiatives, community organization, environmental education, and resistance to destructive practices such as logging, fossil fuel development and large-scale infrastructure projects in forest areas. Many projects are aimed at securing specific and measurable tracts of rainforest and are typically implemented by local forest communities, indigenous federations or other supporting organizations. Protect-an-Acre projects are designed to work in coordination with RAN’s primary campaigns to end old growth forest logging and to end oil and gas projects in forest areas.
The Protect-an-Acre Fund is an integral part of Rainforest Action Network’s dynamic approach to halting further destruction of the world’s forests while supporting the livelihood of forest peoples. Traditional communities are stewards of the fragile rainforest ecosystem and possess a special knowledge of and relationship with these forests. Any real solution to the crisis of rainforest destruction must begin by recognizing the rights and traditions of these communities.
What's wrong with buying a tract of rainforest land to protect it, anyway?
RAN has found that, while some "buy-an-acre" programs are designed to expand protected areas in Costa Rica, for example, most programs, particularly in the Amazon, cater to the preconceived notions of North Americans that ownership brings control. This flies in the face of the complex social and economic realities of other regions such as South America. Most "buy-an-acre" programs ignore the fact that there are people living in the forest. In the Amazon, for example, there are few areas where communities of Indigenous peoples, rubber-tappers, and other riverine people are not found. They often have ancestral rights to the area. By supporting projects designed by rainforest communities, we can empower people whose way of life and well-being is directly dependent upon defending the forest in which they live. Most "protected" areas in the Amazon have been invaded by loggers, oil companies, cattle ranchers, and gold miners. Supporting projects of forest peoples aids them to gain recognition of their land rights and continue their traditional ways of life.
How does the program work?
Protect-an-Acre supports projects to secure specific and measurable tracts of rainforests by helping to fund the work of forest peoples and their allies in rainforest countries. Through RAN's working relationship with environmental organizations, Indigenous communities, and through the advice and recommendations of forest peoples themselves, we are able to identify those key projects which have the greatest potential to defend the rainforests. The small grants (generally under $5,000) provided to groups in the forest have results far beyond the modest amounts granted, and serve to support acquisition of land rights, conservation, and restoration of rainforest lands.
How much rainforest land can I save through my Protect-an-Acre contribution?
It's difficult to quantify the number of acres per dollar donation that can be protected. Just to give an idea of how powerful your Protect-an-Acre donation can be, in 1992, $20,000 was provided for food, clothing and shelter for 10,000 Quichua and Shiwiar Indians from the Ecuadorian Amazon who marched to the capital city, Quito. Through this show of determination and strength, they were able to secure 2.5 million acres of land title. "Purchasing" this same quantity of land would have cost many millions of dollars, and would still have not succeeded in achieving the more far-reaching goal of the government's recognition of indigenous land rights.
Due to the varying threats to particular rainforest regions around the world, the diversity of project types and the different geographic locations of Protect-an-Acre projects, the ratio of dollars to acres protected varies greatly from project to project. Sometimes twenty-five dollars protects one acre of rainforest, and sometimes it protects twenty-five. Usually its hard to connect a dollar amount to the amount of acres protected. However, Protect-an-Acre supports Indigenous communities that live on traditional territories that cover millions of acres. Helping these communities gain or maintain control of their traditional territories is the most effective way to protect the rainforest ecosystem of which they inhabit and are a part of.
In What Countries Does the Protect-an-Acre Fund Work?
Protect-an-Acre projects are supported all over the world, wherever there are forests to be protected. The majority of Protect-an-Acre projects are in the Amazon and Orinoco River Basins in South America, the rainforests of Southeast Asia, the temperate forest regions of Chile and the Pacific Northwest of North America and the Canadian Boreal forest. We discourage donors from restricting donations to specific regions or countries because there is no way of knowing where new project proposals are coming from.
How are decisions made on who receives Protect-an-Acre grants?
RAN's Board of Directors approves grants, with intensive consultation with RAN's Executive Director, Program staff, and recommendations from Indigenous and environmental organizations abroad. Generally, the grants are one-time grants, intended to provide urgently needed funding for innovative initiatives of forest peoples. RAN's Program staff works to monitor how the grants were used, so that progress reports can be provided to Protect-an-Acre supporters.
Does a part of my contribution go toward administrative expenses?
At least 82% of your donation goes directly toward forest preservation. Rainforest Action Network applies a percentage of Protect-an-Acre moneys toward administration, outreach and evaluation of projects. This ensures that your contribution gets the job done. In total, no more than 18% of funds raised will go toward these costs (9% to administer and evaluate projects and 9% to do outreach to raise more funds), and we are working to raise funds from independent sources so that the percentage applied to administration may be lowered or done away with entirely.
Buy-an-Acre Programs provide a "land title" for my donation. What do I get in return for my donation to Protect-an-Acre?
Donors to Protect-an-Acre receive an attractive certificate of recognition acknowledging their contribution, along with a description of specific funded projects. And more importantly, you get the satisfaction of supporting far-reaching projects which have a powerful, measurable effect in saving the world's endangered rainforests and supporting the human rights of its inhabitants.
How is Protect-an-Acre related to Rainforest Action Network's overall programs?
Protect-an-Acre is the cornerstone of RAN's support for forest peoples. Whether our campaigns address logging, oil extraction, global warming, corporate or government policies, each has a component of support for indigenous peoples and other forest communities. RAN campaigns to halt the destruction of the world's forests through working here at home to stop detrimental practices, promote alternatives, and support efforts in the South aimed at these same goals. RAN's Protect-an-Acre is a direct way of helping forest communities to arrest the many forces of destruction. We encourage Protect-an-Acre donors to also become members of Rainforest Action Network, so that we can work most effectively here at home and around the world to lend support to the peoples of the forest and conserve the Earth's precious rainforests.
