(Photo | Courtesy of Ecosia.org)
Ecosia (Ecosia.org), the search engine that plants trees, announced that it has begun its largest tree planting project in the U.S, as the company ramps up its focus on U.S.-based environmental initiatives. Tree planting following the Terwilliger Fire within the Willamette National Forest in Oregon began last month, and 13,000 trees are being planted over the course of this reforestation project. Accounting for normal rates of survival, Ecosia expects that 9,750 of these trees will still be growing after three years.
Ecosia is an ethical tech and not-for-profit search engine that aims to tackle the climate crisis by planting and protecting trees across the globe. Now the fifth-largest search engine in the U.S, Ecosia is rapidly adding new users and planting trees. For every 45 searches, Ecosia plants a tree, and it has now planted over 125 million trees across 9,000 planting sites worldwide. At the current rate, a new tree is planted every 1.3 seconds. Ecosia makes advertising revenue — the same as any search engine — but what’s unique is that it reinvests 100 percent of profits into tree planting and climate action projects around the world, including the new location in Oregon.
States including California, Washington and Oregon have all seen devastating wildfires in the last few years — some of them the largest on record. These fires are not only ecologically damaging, but displace families and communities too. In September of last year alone, Oregon lost more than 4,000 homes to wildfires — including affordable housing for already low-resourced communities. In 2018, the Terwilliger Fire raged over 11,500 acres, and burned through the famous hot springs and popular recreational area in Oregon’s Willamette National Forest.
“Ecosia recognizes that the Pacific Northwest of the United States is an area that has been particularly affected by wildfires over the past few years — especially as rising temperatures from climate change leads to hotter and drier conditions that lead to fires with increased intensity,” said Ruby Au, head of North America for Ecosia. “Through this reforestation project, Ecosia hopes to help start addressing the environmental and social consequences of wildfires in the Pacific Northwest.”
For the tree planting in Willamette National Forest, Ecosia has teamed with American Forests, the oldest national nonprofit conservation organization in the U.S. (founded in 1875). Together, they are planting Douglas-fir, Western Red Cedar, Western White Pine and Sugar Pine seedlings in the damaged fire scar zone.
With over 110 million searches worldwide per week, Ecosia is becoming a major factor in search, and the site’s annual U.S. search traffic jumped 219 percent in 2020. As an ethical tech company, it is also completely privacy friendly. Ecosia does not permanently store user searches, or sell user data to advertisers. Not only that, but all searches are encrypted and Ecosia doesn’t use any external tracking tools.
You can install Ecosia by going to Ecosia.org, and downloading the free browser extension. You can also change the settings in your browser to make it your default search engine. For those who prefer searching on their phones, Ecosia offers mobile app browsers for Android and Apple devices.
Visit info.ecosia.org to learn more.
