Our Methodology

Your donation to support CI's efforts to protect an acre of tropical forest is a symbolic one. So while we can't tell you where the acre is located on a map, we can tell you that your $15 will support conservation projects in the most critical areas on Earth – where biological diversity is greatest and most threatened. That's our priority-setting approach to conservation planning. 

And when we say that your $15 will help protect an entire acre of forest and all of the life it contains, we're referring to CI's principle of "triple benefits." Each of our forest carbon projects is designed to 1) reduce global greenhouse emissions by saving forests, 2) protect habitat for threatened species, and 3) support the livelioods and economies of people that live within or nearby forests.

In 21 years, with generous donations like yours, CI and its partners have protected more than 143 million terrestrial acres – a collective area so large it could be seen from space. Currently 13 forest carbon projects are under way or getting started across the world, in places like Colombia, China, Ecuador, Indonesia, and Madagascar.

With your support in conserving forests, we aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1 to 2 billion tons per year. This represents 3 to 5 percent of the entire global reduction in emissions needed by 2030.

Though costs for conservation vary considerably around the globe, we have calculated the cost of ensuring good long-term management and protection to be $15 per acre per year. The figures here are based on conservation cost estimates provided by Bruner, B., Gullison, R., and Balmford A. in BioScience, December 2004, Vol. 54 No. 12, p. 1119.