Rainforest Foundation UK

It is one of the first international organizations to support the indigenous peoples of the world's rainforests in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their rights to land, life and livelihood.

The Rainforest Foundation was first founded in 1989 by Sting and his wife Trudie Styler after the indigenous leader of the Kayapo people of Brazil, the Chief Raoni made a personal request to them to help his community protect their lands and culture.

Its approach is founded on the belief that the best way to protect rainforest ecosystems is through empowering indigenous peoples and other forest dwellers to defend their fundamental rights to lands and resources.

At the heart of this is ForestLink, a breakthrough system that enables communities to transmit highly accurate and low-cost alerts of illegal forest activities from real-time, even in remote areas with no connectivity.

The Foundation's Indigenous Livelihoods programme in the Ene River valley region of the central Peruvian Amazon supports Asháninka families to generate sustainable incomes through the production of environmentally friendly cacao.

[3][4] The Foundation has been a major critic of carbon offsetting schemes such as REDD, citing issues such as a lack of effectiveness and negative impacts on forest-dependent communities.

The majority of its financing comes from foundation grants, development agencies (e.g. USAID, Norad, UKAID, AFD) and other non-profit organizations, the Rainforest Fund among them, as well as from individual donations.