Source: Cool Earth
Global food and drink giant Nestle has called on the help of an environmental group to help it fight back against criticism of its eco policies.
According to AFP, the firm has hired Tristan Lecomte, a French environmentalist, as well as his carbon management company, The Pure Project. Nestle has asked the group for help in offsetting its factory emissions by planting thousands of trees in the both the Peruvian and Bolivian Amazon rainforest.
The source claimed that Nestle is aiming to offset some 115,000 tonnes of carbon a year with the planting of 350,000 trees.
Local farmers are to carry out the planting and will be financially rewarded for every tree they put in the ground.
Speaking to the source, Mr Lecomte talked of the impact of so-called "slash and burn" agriculture on the world's tropical forests.
"This has a very bad effect on the water resources, on soil erosion and on biodiversity, of course. People's fields are slipping into the river because there are no big trees and their roots to maintain them," he noted.