Mike,
I don't know about the organization that your school is working with,
however the NRDC one (Natural Resource Defense Council one (https://secure.nrdconline.org/08/biogems_costarica_tree
) is legit. I can say so with confidence because CATIE is receiving
such funds to reforest 30 ha of our property and I have been asked to
propose strategic placement of the reforestation to maximize
connectivity between the two large forest patches on our farm.
Again, I don't know any specifics about the other group though. If
they work in Latin America, let me know and I can do some digging for
you, we have good ties with most of the conservation groups in the area.
Fabrice
On Apr 1, 2009, at 1:18 PM, Palmer, Mike wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
Our daughter's 7th grade Geography class is having a fundraiser to
buy and protect rainforest trees, and the organization they are
choosing is 'rainforest forever': http://www.rainforestforever.org/index.html
. The idea behind it is that donors will buy a tree, and get a
certificate that has the GPS coordinates of the tree - something
that will reinforce material learned in the class.
Sounds good so far. However, I have never heard of this
organization, and their webpage does not give any real contact
information, nor any scientific justification. Indeed, there are no
names of individuals associated with the organization. All the
news searches I have done reveal articles that repeat the
information on the web page verbatim.
Nevertheless, I can find no specific information that the
organization is NOT legitimate, and I do not want to confront a
teacher trying to do the right thing unless I know more.
Does anyone have any experience with this organization, or any
knowledge of its legitimacy?
--Mike
Michael W. Palmer, Regents Professor, Botany Department, Oklahoma
State University
104 LSE Stillwater OK 74078 USA 405-744-7717
LABORATORY FOR INNOVATIVE BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS:
http://ecology.okstate.edu/Libra/
Wildfuels Blog: http://cas.okstate.edu/debo/blogs/
OSU Botany: http://botany.okstate.edu/
OSU Ecology: http://ecology.okstate.edu<http://ecology.okstate.edu/>
