Our biggest motivator for our offsetting initiative is the now-acknowledged worldwide issue of climate change, for which we all bear our part of the responsibility.
This project is being carried out through the protection of the rainforest in the Choco Bioregion of Ecuador, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. After much research and study, it has been determined that in order to protect the forest, our conservation effort needs to be rolled out on a number of fronts.
Through the Fundación Futuro, we have formed partnerships to rent land from local farmers and landowners or will be paying them a fee to ensure nature-friendly uses of the land that are kind to people, kind to biodiversity, and kind to the Earth. Additionally, other swaths of forest are to be purchased and tacked on to the current Mashpi-Tayra Reserve (currently nearly 3,000 hectares, or 7,000 acres). This multifaceted effort creates “biological corridors” – continuous strips of restored land that allow for migration of species, adequate mating strategies, and proper foraging — to link up with larger protected areas, as well as financing the development of more sustainable livelihoods in the communities of the Choco.
For us, this project goes beyond carbon footprint offsetting. It is about conservation, biodiversity, and a joint community effort.