Who we are

History

More than 30 years ago, Chief Raoni of Brazil’s indigenous Kayapo people asked Sting and Trudie Styler to support the Kayapo to protect their traditional lands and culture. In 1988, Sting and Trudie established the Rainforest Foundation and spent the organization’s formative years fighting for the Kayapo people’s land rights. The collaboration led to a historic success in 1993: the legal recognition and protection of the 4,914,000 hectare Menkragnoti Territory, the ancestral lands of the Kayapo. From 1994, the Foundation started applying its approach to include similar initiatives in other parts of Brazil and South America and from 1996, it expanded operations to the rainforest regions of Africa and Indonesia.

The Rainforest Family

Today, the Rainforest Foundation is the biggest NGO working on rights-based forest protection worldwide. The Foundation is composed of three national organizations, based in Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the Rainforest Fund, which provides program support to the national organizations and to selected projects on the ground. All four share the same mission statement, vision, and values. The Foundation’s national organizations specialize in different geographies, with Rainforest Foundation US working mostly in Central and South America, Rainforest Foundation UK working mostly in the Congo Basin and Rainforest Foundation Norway operating across the tropical belt.