About Rainforest Foundation US
Our mission
The mission of the Rainforest Foundation is to support indigenous and traditional people of the world’s rainforests in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their rights by assisting them in:
- Securing and controlling the natural resources necessary for their long term well being and managing these resources in ways which do not harm their environment, violate their culture or compromise their future; and
- Developing the means to protect their individual and collective rights and to obtain, shape and control basic services from the state.
To learn more about our work, visit our website.
Our approach
The Rainforest Foundation was one of the first organizations to focus on the vital link between preserving rainforests and supporting the rights of indigenous and traditional peoples who call the rainforests home and have protected them for millennia. The “rights-based forestry” approach sets the nature of the Rainforest Foundations’ work apart from most other rainforest and environmental organizations.
Rainforest Foundation history
In 1989, Sting and Trudie Styler founded The Rainforest Foundation in response to a direct request for help from a Kayapo Indian leader in Brazil who was seeking to protect his peoples’ land and culture.The organization’s initial project led to a role coordinating the first ever privately funded demarcation of Indian land in the region.Since that time, the Rainforest Foundation has grown into a network of organizations working in a dozen countries around the globe. In 1996, the Rainforest Foundation established independent offices in New York, Oslo and London, as well as the Rainforest Foundation Fund. Learn more.
Rainforest Foundation US
Rainforest Foundation US is a non-profit organization based in New York. Over the past several years, RF US has implemented innovative projects in partnership with grassroots organizations in Latin America. Our staff works with partner organizations in the rainforest to help indigenous communities to gain fundamental human rights, map their territories and file claims for land title, lobby for enforcement of laws and policy reforms, develop local sustainable development initiatives and monitor and manage natural resources.
In the years since 1989, the Rainforest Foundation has had the privilege of working with and assisting many rainforest peoples in countries throughout the world. RF-US has partnered with and supported indigenous groups throughout the Amazon Basin.
