Rainforest Destruction:
Understanding the Cross Cutting Issues InvolvedWhy do you want to put an end to rainforest destruction?
Tell me why saving the rainforests matters to you; if I am going to make my solution feasible and successful, I need to know what values drive you to make a difference!
Change the Market, Keep the Rainforests
Coming up with a solution I can call my own has been no easy feat. I understand the complexity of the issues, the underlying factors involved, and the key stakeholders affected, yet I cannot seem to nail down one great idea to end rainforest destruction. So I how do I tackle this problem before it’s too late? Together, (that’s right, I need you too), we can create tangible value for the rainforests.
Rainforest Renewal, in partnership with the Price of Wales and major governments, uses the buying power of consumers and investors (also known as sponsors) to faciliate positive change towards protection and conservation.
How does it work?
People like yourself, looking to make a difference, visit Rainforest Renewal’s website to sponsor a rainforest villager or farmer, and/or the land they live on. By looking at their profile, sponsors are able to choose an area, resource, or person most meaningful to them. This kind of sponsorship means the provision of education, tools, or funding so that they are able sustainably harvest rainforest products to be sold in the marketplace.
Liasons will supervise the farmers to ensure environmentally friendly practices, and to distribute the funds and tools, or to transfer knowledge and education.
When the goods are ready to be sold in the marketplace, sponsors receive a portion of the sales generated (if they exceed a certain amount, depending on the good.) The more people who buy these sustainable products, the more money both you and the farmer make. It’s a win-win, and also reduces the cross cutting issue of poverty.
SVP?
Opportunity: To protect the rainforests from large scale logging and extraction, through the use of Web 3.0.
People: Volunteers - to work with these farmers to distribute the sponsorship packages, and to also ensure that rules are being abided; Retailers – to purchase, to promote, and to sell these sustainable rainforest products, and to stop those that threaten the survival of the rainforest.
Capital: Funding for the website, volunteer training, and business development will need to come from donations. For instance, if organizations like the Canadian Cancer Society see that the cure to cancer could very well be in the rainforest right now, then their incentive to protect it increases significantly. Perhaps even enough so to sponsor Rainforest Renewal.
Context: While there are many other nonprofit organizations trying to save the rainforests, we are in age of social networking and technologically savvy web users that gives Rainforest Renewal an advantage. It provides potential investors/sponsors with the power of choice; at the end of the day, they can honestly say that they are “saving the rainforests.” In addition, with an increasing awareness about climate change, global warming, and extinction, manu people are looking for easy and fun ways to be a part of the change.
Join Willie Smits to learn how he re-grew clearcut rainforests!
Follow a twenty year journey in just twenty minutes. Watch biologist Willie Smits explain to audiences, at TED2009, how he was able to piece together a complex ecological puzzle to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo. It is an absolutely amazing achievement, and provides lessons and inspiration for us all.
Tropi-cana they do it?
Looking a lot recently about sustainable rainforest products, and companies that are helping the rainforests, I have realized that there are a lot of factors that play into their success. Demand being the biggest one.
If we don’t create demand for these goods, how are we ever going to save our rainforests? While I think Tropicana offers a great product for customers looking to do something good for the environment, while getting orange juice, I don’t think its scope is broad enough to truly solve the issue. It definitely is accessible and easy enough to do, but what about the millions of other products out there that don’t offer this? You go to the grocery store and yes, buy Tropicana orange juice, but is your coffee shade grown, and is your soap free of palm oil, and what about the rubber tires on your car, do they come from sustainably harvested rainforests?
We all want to make a difference, but wanting and doing are two very different things. So how do we actually change the market, to change the way we treat out rainforests?
CHOPPING down TREES to SAVE the rainforest?
Chopping down trees to save rainforests: an innovation solution, indeed! Rainforest Information Centre, located in Australia, has been able to protect over 1 million acres of rainforest to date!
In the late 80s, rainforests in Papua New Guinea were being destroyed at a devastating rate, by multinational logging companies. In order to put a stop to the destruction, volunteers at RIC rode canoes down the rainforest canals, visiting small villages who were being wooed, by the loggers, to sign land over. RIC showed them pictures of destroyed rainforest, and was eventually able to convince them to sign a contracting stating that 99% of the rainforests were to remain protected to any kind of logging, while the other 1% would be used for their own logging purposes.
Because these farmers were among the financially poorest people in the world, RIC had to devise a sustainable economic plan; well, they they did just that: by providing the villagers with the education and tools (a “walk-about sawmill”) to saw down their own trees, villagers are now able to sell them to the market at $450 per cubic meter, rather than a measly $3 per cubic meter (the rate offered by the multinational logging companies.) Not only does this alternative save millions of acres of rainforest destruction caused by large-scale logging companies, but it provides the farmers with an income that allows them to achieve a much better quality of life, while leaving their existing social structure untouched.
With the help from the Australian government, churches, and private foundations, RIC has been able to improve the social, environmental, and economic issues facing some of the world’s most endangered rainforests.
Ironic idea? Yes. A novel idea? Definitely.
Can sustainable purchasing really be a sustainable solution?
“Experts agree that by leaving the rainforests intact and harvesting it’s many nuts, fruits, oil-producing plants, and medicinal plants, the rainforest has more economic value than if they were cut down to make grazing land for cattle or for timber.” http://www.savetheamazon.org/rainforeststats.htm
New research shows that $60 per acre is generated when farmers convert their rainforest land into cattle operations; however, when renewable resources are harvested instead, the same land actually yields $2400 per acre. This means that companies, (when able to create a strong enough demand for their product), allow farmers to increase their revenues (which also tackles the cross-cutting issue of poverty), and also help to prevent prevent the damages that would have otherwised occured: biodiversity loss, climate change, and global warming.
In my last post, I mentioned one company that is committed to sustainable harvesting and fair trade products: Guayaki. Although they may still be small in size, I feel that their potential to make significant change remains strong. With sufficient demand from consumers, we can create a new source of income for the farmers: rather than cutting the rainforests down for timber sales, we can create a market (and therefore, an economic solution) for the sustainable harvest of medicinal plants, nuts, oil and other resources.
This is the kind of solution that requires a lot of momentum to take off, but with awareness and accessibility to such products, it’s nothing short of entirely possible.
Rainforests are more valuable alive than cut and burned; solutions should be obvious, right?
Have your rainforest, and drink it too!
It seems that both companies and people are starting to recognize that when the rainforest is cleared for agicultural and business purposes, devastating and irreversible damage occurs.
One such example of a company is Guayaki Yerba Mate. They sell organic, sustainably harvested, fairly traded tea and coffee. Partnering with small farmers and indigenous communities to source mate from the sub-tropical forests of South America, the sales of Guayaki’s product makes environmental conservation and restoration financially viable. Farmers get a monetary incentive to conserve the rainforest that’s there and to restore what’s been lost.
The innovative organization even has a negative carbon imprint: ”the forest growth swallows up more carbon than is produced by the processing, packaging, shipping, and other carbon-emitting aspects of the business, thereby making the entire biz carbon negative.”
”Each person that drinks two servings per day of Guayakí Yerba Mate helps protect approximately one acre of rainforest every year.”
Now you can save the rainforest by drinking orange juice!
Yes, it’s true – by purchasing Tropicana orange juice, you are becoming actively involved in rainforest preservation!
The orange juice company has partnered up with NGO Cool Earth, a UK based international organization that is working to slow the rate of climate change, to make rainforest preservation easy and accessible for everyone.
Tropicana has printed a unique code on each of their containers of orange juice; if you enter that code on their website, they will protect 100 square feet of rainforest (in the name of your choice). They are willing to preserve up to 10,000 acres using this method!
It is such a simple (and delicious) way to do something positive for our rainforests, that it’s really quite impossible to say no to. Click here to learn more about this neat cause, and sent me a comment when you’ve had the chance to purchase your container of Tropicana orange juice! Cheers!
Ten Things YOU should know about Rainforest Destruction
1. 2.4 acres (the size of two football fields) of rainforest are destroyed every second.
2. 137 species become extinct everyday due to rainforest destruction,
3. The number one cause of rainforest destruction is logging, followed shortly by agricultural activities.
4. Brazil has the highest annual rate of deforestation today.
5. It is estimated that 1/3 to 1/5 of carbon dioxide pollution comes from tropical rainforest destruction.
6. Rainforest destruction has caused 80% of the soils to be acidic and infertile. This means that replanting trees will not necessarily help to solve the problems of deforestation. Eventually, cultivation in the forest regions will be impossible, and the land will be useless, leading to permanent impoverishment of huge land areas.
7. Clearing the forest dramatically increases the surface run-off from rainfall, mainly because a greater proportion of the rain reaches the ground due to a lack of vegetation which would suck up the excess rainfall. Flooding becomes a huge consequence of rainforest destruction.
8. The US National Cancer Institute has identified 3000 plants that are active against cancer cells. 70% of these plants are found in the rainforest. If we lose our rainforests, we may lose our fight against cancer.
9. Slowing deforestation by 50 percent from current levels could save approximately 50 billion tons of carbon from being emitted into the atmosphere – or the equivalent of six years of cumulative global fossil fuel emissions.
10. If the current rate of deforestation continues, the world’s rain forests will vanish within 100 years…
Not so “priceless” afterall
Last year, a deal was struck between London-based venture capital company, Canopy Capital and the ICC in Guyana, South America to create “a whole new paradigm for the way in which the world economy values the environment.” I think the important thing to get out of this article is the idea that rainforests naturally capture carbon, and promote the health of our planet, while keeping our ecosystems in tact. Creating a something man-made to do this for us is a waste of time, money, and resources. We need to get back to basics; all we need is what Mother Nature has given to us, and if we can use it in sustainable amounts, then we will leave enough for all future generations. Apparently, though, in today’s capitalist world, everything needs a dollar amount in order to be appreciated. If that’s what it takes to truly value the rainforests, then I fully support it.
VALUING THE RAINFORESTS
LONDON, England (CNN) — It is a familiar refrain to hear the earth and its resources being described as precious and that climate change is, and will, prove extremely costly.
The Iwokrama Reserve covers 370,000 hectares of the Guiana Shield. It is one of the four remaining rainforest regions of the world. But historically, no one has attempted to put a market value on nature’s eco-systems and the services they provide. Until now. Last month, a deal was struck between London-based venture capital company, Canopy Capital and the Iwokrama International Center for Rainforest Conservation and Development (IIC) in Guyana, South America. According to Canopy Capital this isn’t a deal about buying up land. Neither has it anything to do with carbon trading. Andrew Mitchell, Director of the Global Canopy Program (GCP) and a partner in Canopy Capital, says the deal is about; “creating a whole new paradigm for the way in which the world economy values the environment.”
What Canopy Capital is saying is that the rainforests provide us with a service that benefits us all. Not only do rainforests naturally store carbon, they also provide the means for economic stability for the indigenous population, the surrounding regions and further afield. Like everything else, these natural services should and will, they hope, have a value.
HRH The Prince of Wales, who is a patron of the IIC, has described the rainforests as: “Giant global utilities providing an essential service to humanity on a vast scale.” He thinks that the value of the world’s forests is not properly understood and therefore not paid for. Seen from this perspective, Canopy Capital’s new investors might be on to a good thing.
Founded in 1996, the IIC has historically been devoted to scientific research, pioneering the sustainable use of rainforests, as well as encouraging eco-tourism. The intention now is to create a new commercial business model marketing its assets which will preserve its long term future.
The prize asset is the 370,000 hectares of the Iwokrama Reserve, which lies in the heart of the Guiana Shield — a vast area of tropical forest which stretches over 2.5 million square kilometers across the north-east of South America, crossing six state borders. It was gifted to the Commonwealth for the purposes of research in 1989.
Canopy Capital, who announced the deal at the world’s first ‘Biodiversity and Ecosystem Finance Conference’ in New York, currently has a dozen investors who collectively hold an 80 percent stake in the company. The remaining 20 percent is held by the GCP.
An alliance of 29 scientific institutions conducting research into forest canopy, the GCP has been evolving the concept of canopy eco-system services for the past eight years.
It was here that the idea took off. GCP Director Andrew Mitchell met up with Hylton Philipson — a former investment banker. Philipson shared Mitchell’s passion for rainforest conservation and set about trying to work out whether such a project would be economically viable.
Before setting up Canopy Capital together, they worked on the Amazonas Initiative — a project in Brazil’s largest state to preserve the rainforests and their inhabitants.
Mitchell, who combines his work at Canopy Capital and the GCP with research at Oxford University’s Zoology Department, has been studying tropical forests — in particular their canopy — for 35 years. He believes that the new concept can capitalize on the growing fear in the financial markets that climate change is going to be far more costly in the future if we don’t act now.
“Markets are driven by fear and greed,” he told CNN, “and the fear factor has become greater and greater as the science gets better and better.”
He says that the rainforests are a global utility and should be treated as such. “It’s like a local power station. We don’t really know how it works, but we all enjoy the electricity when we turn the lights on. But if you don’t pay the bill you get cut off,” he said.
It might be easy to measure the output from a power station, but how do you define and measure the benefits of a rainforest? One way, Mitchell says, is to model what would happen if the remaining big rainforests utilities — Guiana Shield, Amazonia, the Congo Basin and Indonesia — weren’t there.
“One of the scenarios produced by Ron Avissar of Duke University shows that if you remove the Amazonia, you see rainfall reductions in Mid-West America at different times of the year. If you remove them from the Congo Basin you see changes in rainfall reductions in Uzbekistan and parts of Russia. This would affect our ability to provide food.” Mitchell said.
Reduced Amazon rainfall could also have devastating effects closer to home. Brazil is a nation highly dependent on hydro-power for electricity generation. In 2004, over 83 percent came from hydro-power. For them, less rain would literally mean less power. The destruction of rainforests pose a threat to energy and food security over a vast area, affecting millions of lives. “Governments have a role to play,” said Mitchell, “but so do markets.”
Canopy Capital is currently producing an audit of the Iwokrama rainforest. Mitchell estimates that the Reserve could be storing up to around 80 million tons of CO2, but he says it’s difficult to work out exact values for rainforests right now.
There are threats to the Iwokrama Reserve — a road running through the Reserve is due to be widened — but Mitchell thinks that overall, the dangers are relatively low. And with the President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, committed to the idea of the international community intervening in forest life, in return for environmental protection and aid, the prospects for Canopy Capital so far look good.
“We’re going to have to invest in the earth’s life support systems,” Mitchell said. “What’s the point of making a machine to capture carbon out of the atmosphere when rainforests do it for free? It’s cheaper to maintain that than to build a new one.” But Simon Counsell, Director of the UK charity The Rainforest Foundation sounded a note of caution about the proposal. “We’re fairly skeptical about these ideas of trading in eco-system services or in the carbon that is stored in rainforests as an effective way of protecting them,” he told CNN.
“What we have found over the years is that the only effective way to protect the long term future of rainforests is to ensure that the people who live in and around the forest get some benefit in it staying. And it’s not clear how the local people are going to benefit,” Counsell said. Counsell pointed out that traditional carbon trading benefits tend to accrue to the traders, the middle-men, the investors and speculators.
“The hope is that there will be markets for these vaguely defined eco-services. Whether this is going to be the case with the Iwokrama project we just don’t know yet, because there are no details of who is going to get what from it.”
