Since the founding of Rainforest Trust in 1988, over 16 million acres have been safeguarded from threats such as deforestation thanks to the efforts of Rainforest Trust, local partners and supporters.

Thanks to our wonderful supporters, Rainforest Trust invested $15.6 million in vital conservation initiatives in 2016 to support 119 projects across the tropics, and since its founding has established 136 new protected areas. Rainforest Trust’s innovative approach to rainforest protection makes it one of the most cost-effective international conservation organizations in the United States, with board members covering 80 percent of all administration and development costs. Rainforest Trust has a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, and 100 percent of project gifts directly fund crucial conservation action.

Some of Rainforest Trust’s 2016 successes:

• Southern Cardamom National Park and Prey Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary have greatly expanded Cambodia’s protected area network and safeguard over 1.2 million acres from increasing pressures of logging and agricultural expansion.
• The declaration of the nearly 2.2 million-acre Lomami National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is heralded as a critical breakthrough in securing urgently needed rainforest protection for Endangered wildlife such as Bonobos and Okapis.
• Itombwe Nature Reserve represents a major step forward for the conservation of Critically Endangered Grauer’s Gorillas by permanently protecting more than 1 million acres of Central African rainforest habitat.
• The new 219,609-acre Gola Forest National Park – only the second national park in Liberia – protects vital habitat in the Guinean Forest of West Africa, which contains astonishing levels of endemic plant and animal life.
• Cleopatra’s Needle Forest Reserve in Palawan, the largest critical habitat designated in the Philippines, now safeguards endemic and threatened species such as the Palawan Horned Frog, Palawan Hornbill and Philippine Pangolin, while protecting the forest-dwelling Batak people.
• After 15 land acquisitions, a key strategic property was secured and added to Buenaventura Reserve to consolidate the most important cloud forest reserve in southern Ecuador for Endangered birds such as El Oro Parakeets and Ecuadorian Tapaculos.
• Tesoro Escondido Reserve in northwestern Ecuador safeguards one of the largest remaining populations of the Critically Endangered Brown-headed Spider Monkey and provides a haven for Great Green Macaws, Jaguars and other threatened species.

Rainforest Trust is committed to protecting millions of additional acres in 2017 through numerous projects around the world.