The Mbaracayú Forest Reserve is a perpetually protected nature reserve of 64,400 hectares (159,135+ acres) located in Paraguay. The reserve is unique in that it is privately owned and is the only national protected area established by an international agreement recognized by an act of Parliament. This agreement, signed by the government, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), two Paraguayan Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and The Nature Conservancy of the United States, recognizes the biological importance of the Mbaracayú as a significant remnant of the globally endangered Interior Atlantic Forest type now reduced to 5% of its original range. The conservation and management of the Mbaracayú is a private initiative of NGOs who accepted the responsibility of raising the funds to purchase and protect the reserve. The willingness of the AES Corporation to finance the project as a Green House Gas Investment was the Catalyst that encouraged the NGOs to sign the agreement with the government and the UNDP, and to take on this major responsibility. Protection of the reserve requires the support of the local communities surrounding the Mbaracayú, including the indigenous Aché who continue subsistence hunting and gathering on the reserve. ~ Read More

The Core Zone of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve is fully protected by the Mexican Government; i.e. all human activities are forbidden. However, this core zone comprises only 600,000 acres of the total 1.8 million-acre reserve. The remaining area, called the Buffer Zone, comprises the majority of the reserve and is still unprotected from logging and illegal hunting. CleanMyWorld funds are used to sign conservation contracts with community landowners, called ejidatarios, in the Buffer Zone. We offer landowners a better economic alternative than logging companies would have and these contracts are permanent. In this sense, we convert Buffer Zone land into de facto Core Zone.

CLEAN MY WORLD IS NOT A 'SET-IT AND FORGET-IT' ORGANIZATION!

We want members that care about the Environment and Climate Change issues. We want HANDS-ON people who want to make a difference in the world!

When it comes to funding other projects, we want YOU to make the decisions! All future projects such as investing in technologies like: bioenergy, wind energy, energy efficient light bulbs, efficient (alternative energy) stoves and even human energy will be put to the membership for votes. We are making every attempt to guarantee that no one is able to monopolize the agenda in the selection of, or funding level of future CleanMyWorld projects. As we get more and more project suggestions we post them on the member website. All contributing CleanMyWorld members are asked if we should fund the different projects and if so, how much of funding pool should be allotted to that particular project. Each project and its funding level is re-evaluated to make sure it is producing a good return on our investment (offsetting a significant amount of carbon, pollution and greenhouse gasses), and be put to the membership for a vote every June 1st and December 1st. IF YOU ARE A CONTRIBUTING MEMBER YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF OUR FUTURE.

According to the USDA:"Planting trees remains one of the cheapest, most effective means of drawing excess CO2 from the atmosphere."
We don't see how that could possibly be true! How could planting 6" seedlings be "the cheapest, most effective way"? It may indeed be the cheapest but NOT the most effective. The existing rainforests are by far the most effective carbon sinks possible! Deforestation is one of the reasons we are in the predicament we are in today, and it's still going on right now at an alarming rate! Something has to be done! Every second OVER 1400 native trees are being cut down. That is equivilant to a soccer field cleared every 5 seconds! (OVER 120 MILLION native trees EVERY DAY!) CleanMyWorld.org is working to help stop deforestation around the world!

Planting trees is great BUT, new trees have less than half the CO2 sequestering value and oxygen output of a standing forest! (It takes an average of 300-500 years for a tree in the rainforests to firmly establish its roots with a maximum height for some of the trees reaching 200ft. You can easily see why it takes this long and yet minutes to burn!) It costs over $3.00 to plant a single seedling. It only costs CleanMyWorld $2.00 to save 250 sq meters (2690 square feet) of rainforest! There is an average of 28 full grown trees in 250 square miters and we are not even calculating the value of the hundreds of shrubs, and undergrowth. Comparing the two methods, we are getting well over $60.00 of value for every $2.00 dollars we spend!

One LARGE tree absorbs 10 lbs of air pollutants, including 4 lbs of ozone and 3 lbs of particulates. The value of pollutant intake by the tree is approximately $45 using the local market price of emission reduction credits. Intake of NOx by the tree is equivalent to NOx emitted by a typical car driven 3,600 miles.

One LARGE tree cleans 330 lbs of CO2 (90 lbs C) from the atmosphere through direct sequestration in the tree's wood. The value of this benefit is about $5 assuming the California Energy Commission's price of $30/ton. This ONE tree reduces the same amount of atmospheric CO2 as released by a typical car driven 500 miles. Man is destroying thousands of them every hour!

These ecosystems are an amazing resource that is quickly slipping away. The rainforest is where many modern food staples originated, including tomatoes, corn, and chocolate, but we use a mere fraction of the edible plants available there. In addition, one quarter of modern medicines come from plant species that were first used as traditional remedies. Western science has analyzed less than one percent of rainforest plants for medicinal compounds, and the indigenous tribes that use these plants are rapidly disappearing.

To complicate matters more, the rate of species extinction in the rainforest is undeniably high. As the forests are burned for short-term farming, grazed, and harvested for wood and other compounds at an unsustainable rate, we are swiftly losing the very species that may someday provide needed cures or disease-resistant crops. With them, we lose an extraordinary number of unique creatures found nowhere else in the world.

Deforestation accounts for roughly 20 percent of global carbon emissions — and more than 30 percent of emissions from developing countries. Halting deforestation over the next 50 years would protect important habitat while also providing around 15 percent of the carbon-emissions reductions needed to stabilize global temperatures.

Just as an example; Brazil's Amazon rainforest comprises 30% of the world's remaining tropical forests, and besides providing shelter to one tenth of the world's plant and animal species, acts as a significant mechanism (carbon "sink") for removing excess carbon dioxide and pollutants from the atmosphere. According to the World Bank, 250 square meters (2690 sq ft) of tropical rainforest sequesters about 50 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

Halting deforestation in the next 50 years is possible!

Every $2.00 Enviro-Offset Credit purchase
will Save 250 square meters of rainforest!
  ($2.00 = 1 CleanMyWorld Enviro-Offset Credit)        (15 credits / $30 protects approximately one acre or more)

WHAT IMPACT DOES 250 SQUARE METERS OF FOREST HAVE?

It takes just over 275 square feet of trees to produce enough oxygen for one person.

It takes 6 square feet of trees to compensate for carbon dioxide produced from automobile fuel for each mile driven.
250 square meters of trees sequesters the CO2 from approximately 667 km (415 miles) in an average car. If you drive 1600 km (1000 miles) a month,
YOUR vehicles' environmental impact works out to about 560 square meters of trees a month. (6720 square meters of trees needed each year)

It takes an average of 5 square meters of trees for each mile (3 sq m per km) PER SEAT in a commercial aircraft.
(To offset air travel, 250 sq m of trees should be protected for each (80 km) 50 miles a person flies!) That's only about 4¢ per air mile!
British American Airways estimates that the average flight spews out more than .36 kg of greenhouse gasses per mile per passenger.
That means that on a Flight from New York to London 5586 km (3,471 miles) return, it takes 16,124 sq m (173,550 sq ft) of trees just to sequester the greenhous gasses for that trip alone! That's PER PERSON! (64 CleanMyWorld Enviro-Offset Credits.)

*  These calculations are based on an average of 28 full grown trees in 250 square meters, with a sequestering value of 135 kg of CO2.
* *Facts and figures from: The Rainforest Alliance, World Health Organization, and the Rainforest Foundation.