Cool Earth

In past months, we’ve given to charities like Clean Air Task Force, which advocates for policy-level action on emissions reduction, Trees for Cities, which brings urban green spaces to life across the UK, and Global Canopy, which works to shift financial systems away from deforestation. Each has tackled the climate crisis from a different angle—some systemic, some local, some data-driven.

This month’s charity, Cool Earth, brings a slightly different approach: putting rainforest protection directly in the hands of the people who live there.

Cool Earth is a UK-based organisation that partners with Indigenous and local communities in the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and Papua New Guinea. Their model is built on a simple idea: if you want to save the rainforest, support the people who’ve been protecting it for generations. Instead of imposing conservation solutions from outside, they provide direct, flexible funding so communities can determine their own priorities—whether that’s setting up sustainable cacao farms, investing in healthcare or education, or resisting pressure from illegal logging.

This approach has been proven to work. Forest loss in Cool Earth’s partner areas is consistently lower than surrounding regions—often under 1%. And beyond the trees, the impact is massive: the areas they help protect are home to over 500 million tonnes of stored carbon, biodiversity found nowhere else on Earth, and cultures that have thrived in harmony with nature for centuries.

What I appreciate about Cool Earth is its refusal to reduce climate action to a transaction. There’s no carbon offset calculator, no glossy token trees—just a deep respect for community agency and a commitment to long-term resilience. They're rated positively by charity aggregators like Giving What You Can and Guidestar and are incredibly transparent with their results.

You can find out more here: https://www.coolearth.org