Ecosia: The mission to combat deforestation
Ecosia is a search engine that has been running for nearly a decade, however their business model is slightly different to that of Google or Bing. 80% of Ecosia’s ad revenue goes toward supporting tree planting programs, with a goal of planting a billion trees by the year 2020. They are currently supporting projects in 10 different countries around the world, from Peru to Indonesia, and have so far managed to plant over 20 million trees.
The idea behind the organisation originated after the company’s Founder and CEO, Christian Kroll, decided he wanted to do something more meaningful than profit making with his Business Administration degree, and set off to travel the world. “During his travels he learned about the importance of trees for [the] survival of our planet, and he finally launched Ecosia in 2009”.
“We want to cultivate a world where all humans live together compassionately and in balance with nature.”
Sustainability is at the heart of Ecosia’s values and as such they choose their partners carefully, making sure their potential partners goals align with their own. This takes extensive research into both the impact they will have in the affected areas and the structure of the organisations they will be supporting.
An example of their work can be seen in Ethiopia where they recently joined forces with Green Ethiopia to combat the effects of devastating droughts in 2016. These severe droughts left people, plants and animals alike without access to water. With the support of Ecosia, Green Ethiopia are “reforesting mountain slopes, including fruit trees which will benefit the population in their search for secure food sources”.
Green Ethiopia co-founder Simon Pfister is overjoyed by the support they receive, "we have a variety of donors, including private people, churches, service clubs, and companies, [including] a significant long-term collaboration with the French Foundation Yves Rocher," and Pfister is also hoping for a long, fruitful partnership with the search engine.
"We hope that over the years we can establish a similar long-term collaboration with Ecosia. Such an additional collaboration not only allows us to further grow our projects, in addition we can also share the joy of how trees change the lives of Ethiopians with a bigger audience."
The project is not just about the logistics of planting trees to improve the livelihoods of Ethiopia's inhabitants, but also to illustrate the grandeur of the country itself, changing the attitudes of both those within the country and prospective visitors.
"With this [support], we can spread the image of Ethiopia as a great country, with hard-working and open-hearted people, that offers unprecedented history, beauty and wildlife instead of famine and drought only."
The following video highlights the potential Ecosia has to make a difference to those affected by deforestation.
Climate change and man-made deforestation in recent decades has wreaked havoc with forests throughout the world. Droughts, forest fires, clear-cutting for agriculture and unsustainable logging for timber are destroying 18.7 million acres of forests every year. That’s the equivalent of 27 football pitches every minute (via WorldWildLife).
The situation is moving to a critical point, impacting the livelihoods of millions of people, plants and animal species. This effect is leading to more areas than ever before desperate for support from organisations such as Ecosia. If you know of any such projects that aren’t currently being aided, you can send your suggestions into treeplanting@ecosia.org for their research teams to look into.
If you are interested in supporting Ecosia’s mission you can visit their website at www.ecosia.org to get the free browser extension, meaning every time you use the internet you are giving back to the environment. You may also want to sign up to their weekly newsletter to be updated with all the projects they support and the work you are contributing to.
All pictures and quotes taken from info.ecosia.org unless otherwise stated.