Save our rainforests

Regnskogsföreningen is a NGO, established in 2010, based in Sweden. Our aim is to protect tropical forests through support to local communities in the forests. We have a very modest administration managed mainly by volunteers. All donations and contributions will go, uncut, to the projects we have chosen to support.

A committed core

Regnskogsföreningen is a religiously and politically independent association without any economic interests. The core committee consists of close to ten people with vast experience from protecting rainforest projects. We are working almost entirely on voluntary basis, which means that when contributing financially to any of our projects, the money goes directly to the projects. Our Partners in Brazil have a very long experience of this type of work.

You can read more about our projects further down.

Join us!

All help in the form of grants, donations and volunteers are important to us. We are a dedicated bunch, passionate about protecting rain forests, its people and species diversity. By getting involved in our association, you can make a difference!

Membership in the association costs SEK 100 per year. Please pay SEK 100 to bankgiro 836-3194 or Swish (from a Swedish phone) to 123 0259 226. Please enter your name and email address, so that we can send you updates. For donations, insert any amount in the same Bankgiro 836-3194. Please state "donation".

Our aim is to finance the projects, as far as possible, with funding from ForumCiv (who is funded by the Swedish International Cooperation Development Agency, Sida). A mandatory contribution of 5% to those projects is collected by contributions and donations made directly to Regnskogsföreningen. Hence, your contribution will go to projects in progress. The projects in Brazil and our organisation are annually reviewed by certified public accountants and the majority are monitored by ForumCiv, ensuring that projects are managed in accordance with the plan.

Become a member

Bankgiro 836-3194
Swish 123 0259 226
Membership is SEK 100, please write your name and email address.

For donations

Bankgiro 836-3194
Iban SE0550000000052221181786
Please write "donation", your name and email

Our projects

Our partnerships are always based on long-term relationships, in which we know our partners and regularly monitor their work. Our point of departure is to work with people who live in the rainforest, as they are the forest's natural guardians.

Amongst those, indigenous people are important actors. Today 2l% of the Brazilian Amazon have been recognized as indigenous territories due to the efforts of the indigenous groups themselves, together with dedicated government civil servants and non-governmental partners. Brazil has recognized over 720 indigenous territories covering over 117 million hectares with the vast majority within the Brazilian Amazon region.

Isolated tribes, or uncontacted peoples, are communities or groups of indigenous peoples living without sustained contact to neighbouring communities Around 60 such tribes live in isolation in the Amazon, including in the project areas of Regnskogsföreningen. These people face several threats, and by protecting the forests where they live, they are at least partly protected.

Of great importance are also the large number of non-indigenous peoples traditionally living in rainforest areas carrying out small-scale extraction of products without destroying the forests. Their areas often have some kind of protected status but many times they are under attack by invaders who want to cut down the forests.

Regnskogsföreningen works in two main areas of the Brazilian Amazon: the Karib corridor and the southern part of the state of Amazonas.

The Karib corridor

The projects aim to attain the integrity of the Karib Eco-Corridor in the northern Brazilian Amazon. With 28 million hectares this is the world´s largest rain forest conservation region and has a global impact on climate change and biodiversity. Traditional, poor and marginalized communities including Quilombola (previously enslaved afro-brazilian populations) and indigenous communities living there are strengthened by increasing their capacity to work with local government, civil society and the private sector. The implementation of public policies and partnership projects targeted with these marginalized communities will be facilitated.

Additionally, the project is working with civil society organizations, municipalities and protected areas management government agencies to develop mechanisms for an integrated management and protection strategy of the territories. Increasing pressures from outside actors will be addressed including direct interventions to implement and scale models of sustainable cattle ranching which is a major driver of deforestation. Through their planning and management instruments and under the leadership of their organizations, communities will be assisted in improving their quality of life while promoting sustainable use of natural resources within a rainforest corridor nearly two thirds of the size of Sweden.

We support three main projects in the area:

ARQMO is the Afro-Brazilian organization in Oriximiná, the largest municipality in the Karib with a quarter of Sweden's area. They are descendants of people who, around 150 years ago, escaped from slavery on plantations and founded communities in the rainforest. We have been able to support them over the years to get their eight territories recognized. These consist mainly of rainforest and the main support goes to patrolling to meet invasion threats in the three most vulnerable territories. In addition, we provide basic support for ARQMO to be able to function as an organization, to their office in the city of Oriximiná with basic staff costs and more.

The environmental organization Imazon receives support from us for its work to protect the "Mosaic" of Karib, an area with different types of reserves and nature conservation areas that amounts to two-thirds of Sweden's surface. The joint work takes place partly together with the environmental councils of the municipalities concerned and is also targeting the Brazil nut collectors, who are an important group in a region in the Karib.

Livestock consultants are our third partner group in Karib. Creating pasture for cattle is the dominant cause of deforestation. In our project, the consultants work with around 60 livestock owners in five municipalities in the Karib with the intensification of grazing on a sustainable basis. Instead of cutting down rainforest with poorly managed pastures, operations on existing pastures are transformed so that much higher production is achieved that is sustainable. Among the cattle owners are everything from the largest ranchers to smaller cattle owners. We already know now that they have stopped cutting down rainforests. The poorly managed pastures, many overgrown with weed, are huge in terms of area and the potential to protect the forests is enormous.

Southern part of the state of Amazonas

The southern part of the state of Amazonas, 3.5 times larger than the area of Sweden, is the new deforestation front of the Amazon. The state of Amazonas used to be largely spared from deforestation, but that is no longer the case. The beginning of asphalting of the 800 km BR-319 road from Porto Velho to Manaus, coupled with the release of rainforest clearing by the government, has set in motion massive deforestation.

We support two main projects in the area:

The work with the environmental organization Kanindé focuses on three indigenous peoples who live in the epicenter of the deforestation front in the southernmost part of the state, around the town of Humaitá. They are the indigenous Parintintin, Jiahui and Pirahã peoples. The work involves patrolling/surveillance/invasion fighting, the strengthening of the respective people's organizations and economic development.

The environmental organization Idesam is based in Manaus and has the main responsibility in a coalition with ten organizations for an overall work to monitor the asphalting of the BR-319 with all its consequences for local and indigenous populations, and for the rainforest. In addition, Idesam carries out field work of various kinds. With our support Idesam has begun work in the Tapauá region which has begun to be severely affected by deforestation. The work takes place partly with a forest-dwelling people, river dwellers, in the Tapauá reserve, partly with the indigenous Apurinã people in the Igarapé São João and Igarapé Tauamirim reserves.