ABOUT US
WHO WE ARE
The Save One Tree Foundation was established in 2018 as a reaction to similarly working and usually senseless organizations. The idea to start this initiative came a year before, on our business trip to Ecuador, where we, rather accidentally, visited regions that are severely burdened by agriculture and oil extraction. The devastation we saw there made us change our worldview.
We are not ecologists. Our team consists of a graphic designer and a photographer with management skills in one person, a manager, and more. As you can see, these lines of work seem to have little in common with the protection of nature. We’ve always had quite good pay and never donated a bit to the protection of the environment. We saw no reason in that. Everything works just fine in Europe and ecology issues have always been associated with hippies and students, rather than with business.
And what is more, the constant and systematic emotional pressure of ecologic organizations, such as Greenpeace for instance, had put us on the other side of the argument. Although we could have had acted more or less ecologically, we felt disgusted by these organizations behavior and nothing was sacred to us back then.
However, after a few months spent in Ecuador, we realized a thing or two: the basic principles, such as “this is the planet we grew up on” and “this place gave us our wealth, let’s repay it somehow”. We do believe that there are many people like us. We also believe that we can create a capital large enough to stop the devastation of rainforests. Their business potential lies elsewhere than just in timber and oil production. And what is more, we are able to produce resources in other ways than by destroying everything that can’t be renewed again.
Try joining us. Go there and see it on your own. The world is not just black and white.
SOLUTION IS SIMPLE
The Core of the Problem
Why protect the rainforests? We think that’s quite obvious, so here are a few facts only:
1) Almost a half of medicine being produced comes from rainforests.
2) Rainforests produce oxygen. Deforestation increases the levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
3) Rainforests are simply wonderful. A green sea of trees older than one thousand years.
4) About 50 % of global rainforests have already been destroyed since the year 1920 till 2019.
Europe, North America and a great part of Asia are very wealthy places. Ordinary people there are also wealthy, they’re just not aware of this fact. On the contrary, rainforests lay in poor regions of poor countries, where people’s main focus is to survive. Ecuador is in a similar situation and this is the cause of all the main problems. The government of Ecuador, just as any other government, needs to feed its people in order to be elected again. As there is no developed industry in Ecuador, their only possibility is to produce and export agricultural products, timber and oil.
The oil is a double-edged weapon: as it is located mainly under the rainforests, its extraction means also deforestation. This is a Sophie’s choice for the government: they can either protect the rainforests, or feed their people. The government is interested in the near future and so it’s quite obvious that it will choose to continue feeding their people, to the detriment of their rainforests.
The Resolution of the Problem
The answer is simple: business. As environmentally-unfriendly it may sound, it’s actually the only effective tool in protection of nature. No activists or hippies can resolve the problem. The governments of the countries on the equator need resources to survive. This is not a problem of Ecuador only, also other countries, such as Brazil, face the same struggle.
We can give them those resources by purchasing the given area of rainforests, ideally around the already existing reservations. As the next step, we’d like to legally join the areas to the reservations. If the government disagrees to do so, there is no need to worry: as the area will already be under the proprietary right, other companies will think twice before exploiting someone else’s property. We are able to defend it with the help of lawyers and courts.
This way, we can give the government of Ecuador what they need. In other words, they would still be able to feed their people, and could also celebrate the protection of their environment. In addition, the USA and Europe would benefit from stopping the deforestation. Scientists would be allowed to come and study the flora. Mining companies would have their access denied.
If we can make this all happen, the rainforest will stay. For us and for the next generations.
The plan is quite simple. Demonstrations and protests have little to no effect. What really is effective, though, is a rough commercial solution. Although it may seem that this project is focusing on donations from big companies, it’s not true at all. Our aim is to approach ordinary people who are willing to donate even the smallest amount, starting from $1. There is huge potential in thousands of people uniting to save their planet’s rainforests. Even though they have only little money, they can change a lot with our help.
Any amount you donate has its meaning. Even you can contribute to the protection of the Earth’s nature.
Obviously, we need to start with some minimal price of the area. Its monetary value is placed on a minimum of 7.4 acres (3 hectares) of the area. As it is not possible to purchase it from 3 feet 3⅜ inches (1 m2), we have to work with at least 2.5 acres (1 hectare) of given area. The price of the trees located there is derived from density of forestation on said space. So we can’t really go and buy one tree at a time – we need to raise an amount big enough to purchase the minimal possible area. After the successful purchase of the area, it will be recorded in cadastral records. The tree you donated to will be purchased within this area.