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Forest of Hope

Mein Regenwald is a story of David's successful battle against Goliath! For against powerful interest groups of corrupt land grabbers, land speculators and loggers, we succeeded in what many had thought impossible: The rescue of one of the last contiguous mountain rainforest areas of central Peru. The project proves that the commitment of just a handful of convinced people can change the world. Become part of this fascinating success story and save your own piece of rainforest - as a forest sponsor or by offsetting your CO2 footprint by protecting the rainforest. Join us and become a forest sponsor!

Forest of life

The Mein Regenwald forest reserve is located in the eastern foothills of the Andes. It stretches over 2000 meters in altitude and its many different forest types and peatlands are the last habitat of countless animal and plant species. Few places in the world are home to more different orchids, butterflies, frogs and hummingbirds than here. People also live directly from this last rainforest area. On its borders are a good dozen small farming villages. The livelihood of these people is the virgin forest, which provides them with water and fertile soil. Water is plentiful - more than 100 streams and small rivers rise in the Mein Regenwald protected area. They secure the drinking water supply for two counties where there would otherwise be no rainforest today.

Danger in paradise

As everywhere in the tropics, nature and man are also in danger in the Mein Regenwald area, because loggers, poachers, corrupt officials, land robbers and agricultural investors are just waiting to exploit this last wilderness. Instead of sustainable management, they are looking for short-term profit. No matter what the cost. In the end, bare mountain slopes remain, which can hardly absorb water and dry up. Without the intrepid efforts of Chance e.V., this unique rainforest with all its people, animals and plants would be destroyed forever in just a few years. To prevent this from happening, we have created Mein Regenwald.

Did you know already?

Peru is considered a mega-diverse country among scientists.

Peru has almost every climatic zone on earth.

In Peru there are 84 out of 117 identified life zones of our planet.

At 740,000 km², Peru's rainforests are the second largest in Latin America and the third largest in the world.

The greatest threats to the Peruvian rainforests are slash and burn, oil palm plantations, logging, illegal gold mining and corruption.

Peru is the second largest fishing nation in the world.

There are more species of fish in the rivers of Amazonia than in the Atlantic Ocean.

Up to 60 percent of Peru's economy depends directly on the country's ecology and biodiversity.

There are over 3000 glaciers in Peru, since 1980 almost half of all Peruvian glaciers have melted.

There are currently plans to dam and regulate every major tributary of the Amazon. This is a great danger for the entire ecosystem of Amazonia.

Success through perseverance

When we told former employees of the Peruvian nature conservation authority in 2015 about our plan to save one of the last rainforests in central Peru, they thought it was impossible.

Without allies, our team began to struggle through a contradictory tangle of laws and regulations. Repeatedly,project applications were rejected because indifferent officials and corrupt local politicians wanted to be bribed, which of course was out of the question for us. In a cloak-and-dagger operation, one of them was even arrested by the environmental prosecutor's office as a mastermind of illegal timber trade. In the end, the fight for the rainforest led us all the way to the presidential office of the Republic of Peru. The President finally issued a decree that made our project feasible, and once we had also convinced the provincial government of our plan, after 18 months, things finally started to move.

But then the application lay on the desk of some hopelessly overworked official in the forestry department. Two weeks before the time slot given by the President of the Republic closed again, we finally called in experienced environmental lawyers. Suddenly our Peruvian partners were taken seriously, and three days later our project manager signed the contracts with the forestry agency in the presence of the lawyers. The first and most difficult battle in the fight for the rainforest was won. Today we are working in partnership with the authorities and the protection of the rainforest, which seemed impossible in the beginning, has become a success story.

Climate protection in the rainforest

Without intact rainforests, the earth's climate cannot be saved. They absorb CO2 and produce water. The protection of the rain forests is one of the most important tasks of mankind. Rainforest protection is not only the best climate protection, but also the most cost-efficient.

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Miracle in Peru

Together with its local partners, Chance e.V. succeeded in saving over 20,000 hectares of pristine rainforest from destruction at the last minute, creating one of Peru's largest private nature reserves.