Use German green search engine to plant trees in Brazil

Combat deforestation with a click of a button, courtesy a German green search engine that donates a fraction of its revenues to a tree planting initiative in Brazil.

Ecosia, the green search tool, which donates 80 percent of its advertising revenue to a tree planting programme in the South American nation, has planted more than 100,000 trees in the past 10 weeks.

It claims to plant a tree every 60 seconds.

Once you log on to the site it gives you the current score of the number of trees planted. It can be added to Google Chrome. For every search initiated, it shows your contribution to tree-planting.

"We have 2.5 million users worldwide," Ecosia founder Christian Kroll said in a statement.

"If Ecosia had as many users as Google, we could have the chance to end deforestation once and for all."

Ecosia is a social business with the mission of making the world a more sustainable place.

The search engine is 100 percent carbon dioxide neutral, publishing both its neutralization certificates and donation receipts online, the release said.

At the rate of one tree per minute, Ecosia is on its way to meeting its goal of one million trees planted in the next year.

The search engine, which is an official partner of The Nature Conservancy, has already generated more than $1.7 million for the environment.