Privacy Policy

Who we are

This is the website of the Gaia Forest Project, at www.gaiaforest.org — a private intentional community and forest restoration project on the Dorrigo Plateau, NSW (see our legal structure for more on how we’re organised).

What personal data we collect, and why

Contact forms

When you use a contact form on this site, we collect your name and email address, and whatever you write in the message, so that we can reply to you. Submissions are handled by Netlify Forms and delivered to a private inbox — they are not visible publicly and not shared with anyone else.

If you subscribe to our newsletter, your email address (and any interest groups you select — e.g. Online Sangha, Gaia Forest News, In-Person Retreats, Days of Mindfulness) is stored with our email provider, MailerLite, so we can send you relevant updates. You can unsubscribe or update your preferences at any time using the link included at the bottom of any email we send you. See MailerLite’s own privacy policy for how they handle your data.

Donations

Donations are processed by Donorbox, a third-party payment platform, across our various campaigns (general donations, and specific appeals such as the Deep Eco Dharma online sangha). We do not see or store your payment card details — those are handled entirely by Donorbox and their payment processors. Please see Donorbox’s own privacy policy for details.

Embedded content

Some pages include embedded video (e.g. from YouTube). These behave the same as if you’d visited YouTube directly — they may set their own cookies and collect data according to their own privacy policies, over which we have no control.

Cookies

This site does not set any cookies of its own, and does not use any analytics or advertising trackers. Embedded third-party content and the newsletter signup form (see above) may set their own cookies according to their own policies.

We don’t share contact form submissions or personal data with anyone else beyond the third-party services described above (MailerLite for newsletter delivery, Donorbox for donation processing), each acting on our behalf to provide that specific service.

How long we retain your data

Contact form submissions are retained for as long as needed to respond to you and keep a reasonable record, then deleted periodically. Newsletter subscriber data is retained until you unsubscribe. We don’t retain donation payment details ourselves at all — see Donorbox’s policy for how long they retain data.

Your rights

You can ask what personal data we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, by getting in touch with us, or — for newsletter subscribers — using the preferences link in any email we’ve sent you.

Changes to this policy

We’ll update this page if what the site actually does changes. Last updated: August 2026.