Business guru fights for future of forestry
Though sometimes perceived as free spaces, forests are far from that and provide billions of people with income, food, and medicine.
Once our ancestors began to abandon their nomadic ways in favour of a more settled agrarian existence and the world’s population started to increase, planting of newly-discovered crops meant large areas of forestry were cleared by successive generations. Folk legends and myths graphically illustrate the fear many people felt for these heavily wooded places, often perceived as being inhabited by sprites and malevolent spirits, or, as in Little Red Riding Hood, the once very real fear of roaming and hungry wolves.
In reality, our forests are far more benevolent and are fundamental to maintaining water supplies, providing economic goods, regulating climate change, and housing biodiversity.
Yet too often forested lands are treated as wastelands that can be easily cleared for agricultural and infrastructure expansion.
Rain forests are the oldest ecosystems on earth and have been evolving for a staggering 70m to 100m years.
Research shows that 1bn people derive their livelihoods from forest resources – and that forests provide one-fifth of income for the rural poor. Yet this is rarely considered when it comes to corporate accounting or national planning.
In Ireland we are blessed with many beautiful forests and wooded places.
These areas have been proven to have a significant impact on health and as an effective antidote to stress. Coillte estimate that the biodiversity and recreational element of its operation delivers about €32m a year to the economy.
And in an age when everything has to be seen to be paying its way, this is good news. But in the headlong rush for profit, many forests have been decimated, flora and fauna threatened and indigenous peoples dispossessed.
Yet there are successful entrepreneurs who are finding ways of developing the forests’ natural resources in a holistic, sustainable way. And this gives new hope that mankind is not, after all, doomed to strip the planet in an orgy of mindless exploitation.
Forests – Reasons To Be Hopeful is Bill Liao’s second book. Entrepreneur, diplomat, investor, philanthropist and co-founder of Coder Dojo, Liao founded WeForest an organisation dedicated to making Earth cooler, alleviating poverty, and restoring eco-systems.
His latest book presents a fascinating and detailed insight into how a forest works to help the local and global environment. And case studies from around the world aptly demonstrate why Liao firmly believes that there are many reasons to be hopeful.
Originally from Australia, Bill has lived near Clonakilty for seven years with his wife and three children, and somehow manages to find time to play golf in Kinsale.
Two months now and so far, so good. I’m sure that the foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu has been a great help. We are at a very special moment in our evolution as a species. In fact, the whole world is at a very special moment. Because today we have been given a chance to rewrite the future. In his introduction, Archbishop Tutu says planting trees creates jobs where often no other economic activity exists, giving families the chance to make an income, buy medicine, and send their children to school. Planting trees also restores the environment and cools the planet.
Rainforests actually seed clouds so they help to make rain. This means that if we reforest we can increase average cloud cover. And a two per cent increase in cloud cover could halt global warming. WeForest has a stated goal of planting 2tn trees by 2020. And I have made a personal decision not to travel by plane until we’ve reached our goal. I actually wrote the book while travelling to America on a cargo ship.
That’s right. We need to focus on the resources that Ireland has in abundance – people.
Ireland is a nation of storytellers and storytellers are critical to our world. It’s an opportunity for the country to switch gear, value its creators and create new industries, tell a new story about the country and how it emerged from bad times. A movie, a software programme, a game – the creation of the story is value creation. We need to deal with the abundance of stories and get rid of the frictions that hold us back.
Yes and there’s lots of good news here because not only can we assert that there is no conflict between agriculture and industry, we can demonstrate that forests and forest-care can succeed alongside thriving agriculture, fishing and urban societies.
WeForest is proud to support a growing number of these projects and to admire and support the work that is being done by our colleagues around the world. Like Entrepreneurs Without Frontiers, the first organisation to realize reforestation in the Sahel. A green wall has been started across Africa. It is 4,830 miles long and is a win-win situation for local people, the environment and investors.
As a species by giving up petty and childish nationalistic games and realising that we are close to destroying our world. By investing in our forests and our technology with the purpose of a world that works for everyone. As individuals, by giving our word to good things and then honouring our word by taking actions consistent with that word.
By planting trees, by striving and thriving toward empowerment for everyone. By using the tools of the internet and mobile telephony to reach out and actually do something good every day.
Rainforests are an amazing source of products and there is no reason why some of them, such as medicinal plants, Brazil nuts, shade-grown coffee, and cocoa can be sustainably harvested although unfortunately this is not always the case.
The pharmaceuticals the rain forests have provided have treated problems such as inflammation, fungal diseases, rheumatism, diabetes, muscle tension, malaria, heart conditions, skin diseases, arthritis, and glaucoma.
The US National Cancer Institute has identified over 2,200 plants that are active against cancer cells. But this bounty is daily put at risk by the continued loss of rainforest acreage, species, and tribal peoples.
Logging advocates are fond of saying that today the world has more acres of forestland than it did in the past, the implication being that there’s still plenty of forest that can be cut down.
However, it is impossible to replant an ancient forest with its complex ecosystem of plants, animals, and people. It takes thousands, sometimes millions of years to do that.
Bill Liao says “It is truly humbling to think that we humans have wreaked so much havoc on our own home and overwhelming to think of all the work to be done to even begin to make things right.”
www.weforest.org ; www.coderdojo.com
