Rainforest Alliance

Description

The Rainforest Alliance is an international non-governmental organization that uses social and market forces to protect nature and improve the lives of farmers and forest communities.

Its main tool is an environmental certification for sustainability in agriculture, covering more than 100 crops including coffee, tea, cocoa and bananas. Certified farms must meet a Sustainable Agriculture Standard that aims to conserve ecosystems, protect biodiversity and waterways, reduce agrochemical use, improve livelihoods and safeguard the rights of workers and communities. More than 7.5 million farmers and workers are certified under the program, and over 5.7 million hectares of farmland are managed under Rainforest Alliance certification. Beyond certification, it runs training programs for farmers, landscape-level conservation and community development programs in tropical regions, and it has recently introduced regenerative agriculture tools aimed at improving soil health and rural livelihoods.

The organization also pioneered third-party sustainable tourism certification, though it later transferred that program, along with its forestry certification work, to a separate organization.

The Rainforest Alliance has staff in more than 20 countries and operations in more than 70 countries, including work across Latin America, Africa and Asia. It was founded in 1987 by Daniel Katz. In 2018 it completed a merger with the certification organization UTZ.