The UPS Foundation Awards Funds to International Projects

Atlanta, November 16, 2009

The Conservancy receives support for forest conservation in Brazil, China and Africa

The UPS Foundation, the charitable arm of UPS, recently awarded a $250,000 grant to The Nature Conservancy, one of the world's leading conservation organizations, to support forest projects in Brazil, China and Kenya.

• In Brazil, funding will be used to support work in the endangered Araucaria Forest - a segment of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil - to lay the groundwork for a carbon offset program through the sustainable cultivation of erva-mate, a highly marketable herb that thrives in the forest understory. The Atlantic Forest is one of the most critically threatened ecosystems on Earth. Waves of development have deposited more than 120 million people here, reducing the forest to only 7 percent of its original size, much in isolated fragments.

• Funds for China will help complete the first of a three-phase climate change assessment focusing on 33 priority conservation areas. The assessment will lay the groundwork for conservation projects that will ensure the viability of China's precious forest resources in the face of a future altered by climate change.   

• In partnership with the Greenbelt Movement (an organization that empowers African women through conservation entrepreneurship), 62,000 trees will be planted in the Mau Escarpment in Kenya thanks to this funding. The UPS Foundation's support will also help protect existing old-growth forests in the Mathews Range of Northern Kenya.

"This gift from The UPS Foundation will allow The Nature Conservancy to advance some of our most critical international conservation projects," said Mark Tercek, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy. "These projects exemplify the Conservancy's commitment to protect natural systems for the health of our environment and the sustainability of communities."