Wren Blog

State of the Fund: January 2021

Thomas Hollands -

Hello Wren members!

Thanks for supporting the Wren Climate Fund, a rotating collection of climate projects, curated by Wren, that sequester or prevent carbon emissions. Every month or so, we send a "State of the Fund" update which recaps the recent progress the projects in the fund have made. Click "Read full update" on any of the recaps to see a more detailed report, including images, videos, and letters written by project leads, specifically for Wren supporters.

For more updates like this one, follow Wren on Twitter and Instagram.

Here's what happened in December and January:

This not-so-little piggy is intoxicated by her newfound freedom.

🐷 Regenerative Agroforestry

Reviewing a stunning year of growth

  • This year Future Forest planted over 18,000 trees, and bought over 2,700 acres of land.
  • The team, now up to 11 people, aim to plant 1 million trees this year.
  • The woolly piglets aren't letting the cold weather get them down. Many have grown large enough to leave their indoor shelter and trot about the estate independently.

Refugees in Uganda eagerly awaiting a meal cooked using clean-burning fuel.

🔥 Clean cooking fuel for refugees

First clean-burning briquettes delivered to refugee families!

  • The project has sent its first briquettes to 30 families! The project delivered briquettes to 20 families in the Adjumani refugee settlement, and 10 families in the adjacent refugee host community.
  • It is election season in Uganda, and the project is preparing to scale up. It has 10 tons of briquettes ready to send to refugees, and over 150 tons of biochar ready to compress into briquettes. It'll ship them after the elections.
  • The briquettes will prevent more CO2 emissions than expected! They will prevent 7.33 tons of CO2 per ton of briquettes, up from the original estimate of 5.46 tons of CO2.

Over 50% of this project's farmers are women, including many group leaders. This is a teaching session on sustainable farming practices.

🌲 Community Tree Planting

How tree planting helps African women become community leaders

  • Our projects give farmers many opportunities to grow. Today we hear the story of Charity Wanjiku, one of thousands of farmers raised up by our partner, TIST.

Rainforests are teeming with biodiversity. By protecting them, you also protect the home of countless plant and animal species.

🛰 Tech-enabled Amazon Rainforest Protection

2020 review, and the largest win for Panama's indigenous communities in decades

  • Our project protected over 15 million acres of rainforest this year. That's more than the entire area of Croatia!
  • The Naso TjĂŤr Di people of Panama have reclaimed almost 400k acres of ancestral land, after the Panamanian supreme court recognised their rights. Our partner provided their legal advice.
  • Because many government officials have been diverted to work on the pandemic, the threat of illegal logging has increased. At this time, your support is more important than ever!

That's it for this update! If you have questions or feedback, please reply directly to this email. I'll reply as soon as I can.


– Thomas Hollands