Chubb Charitable Foundation donates $346,000 to the Rainforest Trust
The Chubb Charitable Foundation has granted $346,000 to Rainforest Trust to support the expansion and protection of one of the largest intact rainforest ecosystems in Southeast Asia.
The grant is part of a previously announced $500,000 commitment to Rainforest Trust, a global conservation organisation that purchases and protects the most threatened tropical forests through partnerships and community engagement.
The grant will help protect an additional 2,472 acres of land in the Leuser Ecosystem on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The project will extend a protected wildlife corridor vital to endangered and threatened species, including Sumatran elephants and rhinos, tigers and orangutans. The ecosystem is a globally important carbon sink, and the property stores nearly 350,000 metric tons of carbon, equal to about 3 billion miles driven by the average passenger vehicle.
The Chubb Charitable Foundation directed its donation to the Rainforest Trust’s Conservation Action Fund, which focuses on urgent conservation initiatives to protect critical habitats that would otherwise be used for development, agriculture or natural resource extraction. Its first grant of $154,000, announced in June, supported Rainforest Trust's expansion of the Papagaios de Altitude Reserve in the Atlantic Rainforest of Brazil.
Lori Dunstan, vice president for global corporate giving at Chubb, noted that Sumatra's Leuser Ecosystem is the only place on earth where orangutans, tigers, rhinos and elephants coexist in the wild.
"New infrastructure developments, such as hydropower and road construction, threaten to further devastate the ecosystem and endanger sensitive wildlife habitats, making it an urgent conservation priority,” said Dunstan. “Rainforest Trust's protection of threatened rainforest ecosystems not only slows species extinctions but also prevents carbon emissions, an effort closely aligned with Chubb's commitment to do its part as a steward of the Earth."
