The Numbers:
The Amazon rainforest is vast.
It covers 5.5 million square kilometres (2.1 million square miles), with an estimated 16,000 species, and 390 billion individual trees.
However, the speed of deforestation is an exponentially critical emergency.
Indeed, it is estimated that 6% of the planet's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest.
Even more importantly, the world's rainforests trap humanity's carbon emissions.
In 1998, NASA calculated that by 2100, just 80 years from now, ALL of the world's rainforests will have been cut down, exacerbating climate change, and eliminating the majority of the world’s plant and animal species.
In 2017, Global Forest Watch calculated that one football pitch of trees is being lost every second, which is equivalent to the entire area of Italy - every year.
The Challenges:
There are some two-dozen charitable organisations which are already protecting relatively small parcels of land in the Amazon rainforest.
However, for various reasons, those charities’ incomes and, in turn, the parcels of land which they are protecting, are relatively small, and unconnected from each other.
In other words, amongst the existing rainforest charities, there is a lack of internationally co-ordinated:
- Fundraising strategy;
- Land selection;
- Political lobbying.
The Solutions:
Buy The Amazon (BTA) has been established to help solve those problems, with a long-term view of being an umbrella fundraiser and political lobbyist, raising money on behalf of all the Amazon rainforest charities worldwide.
BTA’s focus is to harness the power of digital technology, including satellite imaging, to raise significant charitable donations on behalf of all the organisations which are endeavouring to protect the Amazon rainforest.
The funds raised by BTA will be invested into:
1. Making charitable donations to the existing rainforest charities;
2. Purchasing the legal freehold ownership of additional parcels of virgin Amazon rainforest, for perpetuity, for the benefit of humanity.
3. Educating the general public about the necessity of protecting the Amazon rainforest, and the many inspirational ways in which satellite technology is helping that process;
4. Being the international umbrella political lobbyist for all the existing rainforest charities;
5. Generating more funding, by re-investing income into obtaining further returns from relevant income streams.
Buy The Amazon Ltd was incorporated in England in 2019 as non-profit company 11797625, limited by guarantee.
Buy The Amazon is in the process of being registered by the UK Charity Commission as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO).
Upon completion of the process, Buy The Amazon will be registered as a Foundation CIO.
