Trees not profits

Growing trees in a nursery is just one way to bring forests back. In Brazil, for instance, we're paying firefighters to keep human-made fires at bay. In Burkina Faso, we dig half-moon-shaped seedbeds. In Malawi, we're using radio to grow trees – no nursery required! Listen to the Ecosia podcast to learn how – and how well – this innovative method works.

This interview features Dominik, a developer and the tech lead for Ecosia’s search team. He talks about why privacy matters, and how Ecosia’s privacy policy compares with that of other search engines, such as Google or DuckDuckGo.In short, at Ecosia we don't store your searches permanently, and don't create personal profiles of you based on your search history. We actually anonymize all searches within days. Nor do we sell your data to advertisers, or use any external tracking tools. Moreover, we protect your searches from potential eavesdroppers with a securely encrypted connection.

Like Ecosia, Jonathan Drori is passionate about telling stories about trees. His latest book Around the World in 80 Trees has just been re-released in paperback. In this episode of the Ecosia podcast, he talks about the origins of his ongoing fascination with trees, the role education and leadership can play when responding to crisis - whether it’s the coronavirus crisis or climate crisis - and about why, when it comes to trees, there is always much more than meets the eye.

Jéssica Lins is a software developer at Ecosia. We have company policy that every employee gets the chance to visit one of Ecosia’s reforestation projects. Jessica decided to visit our project in her home country, Brazil, where we are restoring the Atlantic rainforest, a magnificent biodiversity hotspot. In this episode of the Ecosia podcast, she tells her story — of her work as a developer, of her changing relationship to her home, of finding meaning in work, and of how her climate anxiety has started to turn into hope. 

On Thursday, January 23, all Ecosia searches will plant trees in Australia. We will use 100% of our profits to help regenerate the country’s ecosystem by planting native, subtropical trees in the Byron Bay area, which is a biodiversity hotspot that has been affected by the fires. With your help, we can plant trees that clean the air, bring down temperatures, support biodiversity, and attract rain in Australia. In this episode of the Ecosia podcast, Maximo Bottaro talks about the situation in Australia, why rainforests should never burn, and how we're going to fix this together. He is the co-founder and president of Ecosia's local partner, ReForest Now. Go to Ecosia.org to get started!

In the age of the climate crisis, bad news is no longer news. We are constantly confronted with the reality of climate change – with all of its consequences, and with the fact that greenhouse gas emissions are still rising, despite everything.It doesn't come as a surprise that this situation is having an effect on our mental health. More and more people are suffering from "climate anxiety" (sometimes called "eco anxiety" or "eco anxiety disorder"). In this episode of the Ecosia podcast, we talk to Rosemary Randall, a psychotherapist and author who's been working on people's psychological response to climate change for the past 15 years.Climate anxiety denotes distressing feelings that people experience when they let themselves understand what climate change is. It is, according to Randall, a life-changing experience, as well as an appropriate response. Fortunately, there are things we can do to manage climate anxiety.This podcast episode addresses some of the following questions: How does climate change lead to climate anxiety? How do we know if we have climate anxiety? How can we cope with climate change anxiety in creative ways?

Despite international efforts to restore forests, we still lack a basic understanding of how much trees could potentially be supported by the land. In their latest paper, the Crowther Lab maps the global potential tree coverage to show that, under current climate conditions, our planet could support 4.4 billion hectares of continuous tree cover. That is 1.6 billion more than existing coverage.

Spain produces 12% of the EU’s fruit and vegetables. It is home to over half of Europe’s animal and plant species. Yet 75% of the country’s soil is degraded. Large parts of Spain are on the brink of becoming a desert. We had to do something. So we partnered with Alvelal, a farmer-led association. Together we’re planting trees and help farmers switch to agricultural practices that regenerate their soil instead of depleting it. This episode of the Ecosia podcast explores this tree-planting project through interviews, a personal story about going home, and a polyphony of sounds and instruments recorded at our reforestation site by our friends at Sound Matters.

Alternative Nobel Prize laureate Tony Rinaudo explains how to bring forests back through Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration -- an innovative reforestation technique that is changing landscapes and lives. Ecosia has been applying Tony Rinaudo's technique in Ghana, in combination with traditional tree-planting. Our aim is to restore the banks of the Daka river, a vital source of water for the region.

Our profits go towards trees, not shareholders – and we’ve just made that commitment legally binding. For most traditional entrepreneurs, this sounds like a terrible idea. But Ecosia isn’t a traditional business. Instead of maximizing shareholder value, we’re interested in maximizing the amount of trees we plant. To learn more about how we’re working with a third party to make sure Ecosia will always be not-for-profit and never pay dividends to anyone, we talk to Ecosia's founder and CEO, Christian Kroll.