Project update

State of the Fund: February 2021

All the projects in the Wren fund are growing fast. But one– tech-enabled rainforest protection– has grown by an incredible amount.

Thomas Hollands

Feb 10, 2021 • 3 min read

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 an update to recap any 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 January and February so far:

A picture containing hay, grass, indoor, mammal

Description automatically generated — It's been extremely cold this Winter in Scotland. Luckily the newborn piglets are safe, snuggling together in the home Ken built for them.

🐷 Regenerative Agroforestry

Regenerative Agroforestry: How to store CO2 for thousands of years

❄️ Despite snow, strong winds, and temperatures reaching -13C, Andy and Ken managed to plant over 1,000 more trees at Brodoclea.
🐖 They also welcomed another 9 baby piglets into their litter!
🔥 The team's newest member, Kris, has started their biochar project. Kris will turn forest waste into biochar, a form of solid, almost-pure carbon, that keeps CO2 locked up for thousands of years. Read on to learn more!

Our project lead, Peter Nyeko, walking with Ugandans ready to fire up some clean-burning briquettes.

🔥 Clean cooking fuel for refugees

Investment in clean cooking fuel factory will double production!

👨🏽‍🏭 The project has invested to double its production capacity. Four new production lines will be available at the end of this year.
🔜 Clean Cooking Fuel for Refugees is in the process of being verified by Gold Standard, a well-regarded benchmark for climate projects around the world. The assessment should be completed later this year.
🔥 Our project recycles plant waste to produce two different kinds of clean burning briquettes: non-carbonized biomass briquettes, and biochar briquettes. In this update you'll learn how each one is made.

Our project has turned a barren land into a vibrant forest.

🌲 Community Tree Planting

How thousands of Africans planted 20 million trees

Over 100,000 farmers participate in Community Tree planting across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and now India!
Our project's ability to scale relies on effective information sharing. Regional leads write newsletters, written in multiple languages to share farming best practices with small groups across East Africa.
Our project partner, TIST, released a video from a satellite, showing the incredible scale of the project over the past decade.

Indigenous communities voted to scale up their rainforest protection efforts– and increase the scale of our project, to cover rainforest in the Napo and Lower Amazon River basins.

🛰 Tech-enabled Amazon Rainforest Protection

Rainforest protection triples in size with more expansion planned!

Our project has expanded to two new communities: Bufeo Cocha and Santa Rita. Together they're actively protecting over 5,800 acres of Amazon rainforest– a bigger area than JFK international airport!
Indigenous leaders from the Ticuna, Yagua, and Kitchwa peoples voted to scale up their rainforest protection. They're planning to include 9 more communities, to protect over 35,000 acres of rainforest.

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 & the Wren team.