Looking to make a more positive impact upon the environment from the home or office? You should consider using Ecosia — the search engine that plants trees. Brought to our attention by Stefan Darling, a student in the TFTI department, we’ve put together a blog on how Ecosia works and how you can support it by using a unique University of York URL!
What is Ecosia?
Starting in 2009, Ecosia was founded as a modern-way to tackle the issues of deforestation by making use of a search engine in order to bring about positive change. From the revenue that they make from ads, Ecosia spends this money to plant trees where nature and people need them the most. Already, 91 million trees have been planted in Ethiopia, Brazil, Indonesia, Spain, as well as many other places around the world, and this all down to the 15 million users who use this search engine daily.
In order to be most effective with their project, Ecosia only plants trees in deforested areas; these places offer an environment where trees will naturally thrive after planting. The aim is to restore the natural forest ecosystem that existed previously, with some exceptions of planting non-invasive fruit or nut trees to provide income and food for the local communities. So not only are Ecosia supporting new ecosystems, they are also supporting local communities who have also been impacted by deforestation.
The planet and local communities aren’t the only ones benefiting from the positive work of Ecosia. Through their work of support biodiversity, Ecosia are able to create and maintain habitats for endangered animal species around the world! Still got questions? Visit Ecosia’s website at: Ecosia.org.
How can you use Ecosia?
Become part of the community that use Ecosia as their default search engine by using our link specific to the University of York! Anyone that downloads the Ecosia extension through this link will start to add to the University’s tree counter: https://ecosia.co/UniversityofYork. Another way you can use Ecosia is through their mobile app, this way you can plant tress while searching the web with your mobile phone or tablet! Find out more about their mobile app here.
We’re going to put together a campaign in the hopes of convincing the University to switch to Ecosia as their default engine, so if you would like to get involved with the movement then give us an email at: connecting-east@york.ac.uk.
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