How to Use Technology to Repopulate Old Growth Forests

If you could help repopulate deforested areas with trees—from your computer—would you? A Germany-based search engine is hoping you’ll say “Yes!”

Ecosia.org is helping people give back to Mother Nature with every click of its online ads.

• Ecosia donates at least 80 percent of its income after expenses, or about $75,000 a month, to programs that help revive landscapes ravaged by drought.
• The money is generated by “EcoAds,” which the company places next to search results. With each click on an EcoAd, the company’s partner pays it for having directed users to their advertisers.
• With every search, over 2.5 million people a month are helping one of 35 biodiversity hotspots to become a little greener. This video from Ecosia shows how trees “talk” and highlights some of the vital roles trees play in our forests.
• Four trees a minute, on average, are now planted by Ecosia. This is up from just one tree per minute in 2009, when the site launched.
• Ecosia celebrated its first million trees in 2014 and hopes to reach the one-billion mark by 2020.

Best of all, users are empowered to do good without spending a dime! Want to support tree planting through Ecosia? Just visit the company’s web site or get the mobile app and start planting trees with every search!