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.