M&S branches out to keep 1m trees standing

British high street retail chain Marks & Spencer (M&S) has signed a partnership with UK-based rainforest protection charity Cool Earth to protect 5,000 acres of rainforest.

Through funding and training indigenous communities to adopt financially and environmentally sustainable land-use policies, it is hoped that the affiliation will result in keeping one million trees standing.

The three-year partnership with M&S will support Cool Earth’s Ashaninka project in Peru. It sits within the Amazon biome and to the west of Mato Grosso, where much forest has already been lost to soya and cattle agriculture.

The M&S says its investment will tip the balance away from clearing forest for soya, ranching and plantations by giving indigenous communities control over their forest and boosting the incomes they make from sustainable harvesting of forest products such as coffee, cocoa, Brazil nuts and ashiotti (seed used in beauty products).