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From our initial findings then, although we can’t offer a guarantee that Ecosia has reached the exact number of trees planted that it claims, it does seem like it has made a significant difference to tree planting in a number of vital and threatened ecosystems around the world.
https://cariki.co.uk/blogs/the-green-road/is-ecosia-legit-or-fake
I don't know about ecosia, who claims to plant 0.8 trees per second, and maybe I'm too cynical here... but I assume a lot of things like this are actually subsidizing deforestation for the purpose of planting oil palms.
Here is a paper from 2002 on the website of the Malaysian government's Palm Oil Board explaining how, at the time at least, they could actually sell carbon credits by classifying these rainforest-replacing plantations as a "Clean Development Mechanism" under the Kyoto Protocol. 🤦
If you can't figure out what kind of trees they're planting and where, I'd remain skeptical.
I know the topic is not about this... but as long as the service doesn't run on free software, it's like "I don't care what you do" to me
Its similar to those CO2 offset addons you can buy with Ryanair. The impact is probably low and fraud involved is likely high, but it is cheap and might be in the end better than a more expensive option that no-one uses/buys.