Founders Sting and Trudie Styler began the Rainforest Foundation International in 1989 after they saw first-hand the destruction of the Amazon rainforests, and the devastating impact it had on the lives of the indigenous peoples who lived there.

The Rainforest Fund was created in 1999, after ten years of working as Rainforest Foundation International.

Its mission statement reads as follows:

The Rainforest Fund is a charitable foundation that fulfills its mission to protect and support Indigenous Peoples, and Traditional populations of the Rainforest in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfil their rights.
Convinced that accepted environmental and human rights principles embody the right of everyone to a secure, healthy and ecologically sound environment, and that environmental degradation leads to human rights violations such as the right to life, health and culture.

The Rainforest Fund, bearing in mind the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights, carries out its mission by:

Funding programs and projects aimed at supporting Indigenous Peoples and traditional populations of the rainforest to assert and defend their rights, to promote a sustainable development of their communities, and to challenge government practices which have a damaging effect on their environment.

The Foundation's first major initiative was to campaign for the protection of the lands of the Kayapo Indians in Brazilian Amazonia. This resulted in 1993 in the legal recognition and demarcation of an area of more than 27,359 square kilometers.

Over the last 23 years the Foundation has expanded and diversified.
Today the New York-based Rainforest Fund provides grants to three autonomous Rainforest family organizations - Rainforest Foundation US, Rainforest Foundation Norway, Rainforest Foundation UK as well as other organizations that follow its mission. These Rainforest Foundation organizations directly provide support, expertise and monitor projects in more than 20 countries that protect tropical rainforests and the people that live in them.

Rainforest Fund Board of Directors

Franca Sciuto

Rainforest Fund Chairperson

According to Sting, Franca Sciuto, co-founder of the Rainforest Fund, “is a modern day hero.” Her voice resonates around the world. Her lifelong mission has been protecting the rights of victims and alerting the
world to injustice. Whether as chairperson of Amnesty International,speaking all over the world to governments on abolishing the death penalty,or coordinating the relief efforts for the European Community for earthquake
victims in Southern Italy, she has been a powerful force to construct change and provide relief.

In the 1980s she was elected to Amnesty’s supreme governing committee, the International Executive Committee,and served three terms as its first female chairperson. It was in this role that she traveled the globe in Amnesty’s worldwide campaign to fight torture, free prisoners of conscience, and abolish the death penalty. She has represented Amnesty at the United Nations and headed investigative and other high level
missions to numerous countries.

In 1989 she was asked by Sting himself (a long-standing Amnesty supporter and benefactor) to assist in the realization of the Rainforest Foundation Fund’s mission. Under her guidance and direction as chairperson, the organization has been able to extend its projects beyond Brazil to encompass 20 rainforest countries around the globe.

Her mark on the world has been constant and methodical and as a result it has not gone unnoticed. She has garnered awards for her work on Human rights in Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. To this day she undertakes high level missions on human rights violations for the U.N. Her presence has been noted in more than 40 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia, and South America.

Mother of three children and grandmother of two, Ms. Sciuto today resides in Ispra, Italy, with her husband. She heads her own firm, EC2 Consultants in Milan. She holds a degree in Economics and in International Law in France, and a degree in Sociology in Italy. She serves on the Board of the Gabriella Sciuto Foundation,which deals with research in the medical field of psychiatry. She created this foundation in 1997 in memory of her daughter who was a psychiatrist.

Trudie Styler

Trudie Styler is an actress, film producer, director, human rights activist, environmentalist, organic farmer and UNICEF Ambassador.

Trudie’s charitable works have been awarded by many organizations, including the Rainforest Action Network in 1994; Amnesty International in 2000; and Oceana in 2008, who honoured Trudie alongside husband Sting and Former US President Bill Clinton for her outstanding contribution to protecting and conserving our environment.

As an Ambassador for UNICEF, Trudie has been responsible for raising $5million for their projects all over the world. For example, money she raised built new schools for children who live and work on the dumpsites of Ecuador, providing them with education, regular meals and support for their families. She also initiated a clean water project in Ecuador, combining the efforts of the Rainforest Fund, UNICEF Ecuador and the Amazon Defense Fund to install filtration tanks in rainforest communities whose land and water have been polluted by international oil producers for over four decades.

Since the 1990s Trudie has been an organic farmer at her homes in England and Italy. In 1999, the Lake House Cook Book was published. She is Vice-President of the Soil Association, and in 2010 launched the Lake House Table food brand as well as three wines produced on the family’s Tuscan estate.

Her film company, Xingu Films, produces award-winning documentary and feature films, including MOVING THE MOUNTAIN (1995); Guy Ritchie’s first two films LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (1998) and SNATCH (2000); the double Sundance Award-winning A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS (2006) by Dito Montiel; and the BAFTA-winning MOON, by first-time director Duncan Jones.

Trudie’s recent acting credits include EMPIRE (2004); LOVE SOUP (2005); LIVING PROOF (2008); PARIS CONNECTIONS (2010); and Paul Haggis’s THE NEXT THREE DAYS (2011).

STING

Composer, singer, author, actor, activist – Sting has won universal acclaim in all of these roles yet he continues to defy easy labeling. Born in Newcastle, England, Sting moved to London in 1977 and formed The Police with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers. The band released five albums, earned six Grammy awards, and in 2003 was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

As a solo artist, Sting released Dream of the Blue Turtles in 1985, followed by Bring On The Night, Nothing Like The Sun, The Soul Cages, Ten Summoner's Tales, Mercury Falling, Brand New Day, All This Time, Sacred Love, Songs from the Labyrinth, If On A Winter’s Night…, and Symphonicities. He has evolved into one of the world's most distinctive and highly respected performers, collecting an additional 11 Grammys, 2 Brits, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, three Oscar nominations, Billboard Magazine's Century Award, and MusiCares 2004 Person of the Year.

Sting has appeared in more than 10 films and in 1989, starred in The Threepenny Opera on Broadway. In 2003, he published a memoir entitled Broken Music and later released Lyrics, a comprehensive collection of lyrics with personal commentary spanning his career. Sting’s support for human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the Rainforest Foundation also mirrors his art in universal outreach.

Li Lu

Treasurer

Li Lu was born and grew up in Tangshan, China. He was a survivor of 1976 Tangshan earthquake. In 1985, he went to Nanjing University, majored in Physics but later transferred to Economics. In 1989, he participated in the Tiananmen Square student protests and became one of the student leaders. He helped organize the students and participated in a hunger strike.

After the crackdown of the movement, he left China and went to study at Columbia University. In 1990, he published a book about his experience in China titled “Moving the Mountain: My Life in China” . He graduated from Columbia receiving three degrees simultaneously: a B.A. in Economics, a M.B.A. and a J.D. in 1996.