Our Forests are Burning

We’re losing our rainforests at the rate of an acre per second. Every year, forest areas the size of New York state are completely wiped out. That’s 32 million acres gone for good, because we decided we need land for crops, cattle, and pulp and paper more than we need forests. This isn’t just environmental genocide, it’s suicide. Without forests to breathe carbon in and oxygen out, our own lives – and those of our children – are at risk.

The good news is that ending deforestation is the fastest, easiest, cheapest, and most scalable climate change solution there is … period!

Deforestation pollutes more than all of the world’s cars, planes, and ships combined. It’s almost 20% of the total climate change problem.

The New Tree Huggers: Corporate Leaders

Imagine a world where every product in your supermarket is sustainable. Where companies decide that deforestation-free is the new normal. Where CEOs embrace their inner treehugger. Well, it turns out that a lot of companies now realize that doing good things for the environment also means good things for their bottom line. We’ve been working with industry leaders to help create a global market for products that come from sustainable practices, like protecting forests instead of burning them. We’re working toward the day where everything you put in your grocery basket will be as good for you as it is for the planet.

Bottom Line: Fortune 500 company leaders, representing $3.1 trillion in commodities have pledged to buy ONLY deforestation-free supplies for their goods by 2020. This is a MONUMENTAL first step … and a total game changer. Continue below to see what this new world could look like …

While individual governments and businesses have begun to address deforestation, much more can be achieved if we align our efforts and work in partnership.

— Unilever CEO Paul Polman

Every Movement Needs its Heroes

The shift to sustainable markets and businesses will take time, but it will also take a lot of help from leaders in governments and nonprofits. These leaders can help companies close the gap between promise and performance. We’re working to convince potential partners to help with this global transformation. For the past eight years, our parent NGO, Avoided Deforestation Partners, has built a network of high-visibility advocates, like: His Royal Highness Prince Charles, Dr. Jane Goodall, Harrison Ford, Richard Branson, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

These well-known and highly respected advocates are getting the word out, and together we are creating enough public awareness to support the world’s first “sustainable, deforestation-free marketplace.”

“We have to start thinking about reshaping consumption patterns so that we align them in a far more farsighted way with the very real constraints of our planetary boundaries.”
—HRH Prince Charles

BUILDING AWARENESS ONE STORY AT A TIME

Stories are a great way to make the connection between climate change and deforestation. Like the two young Girl Scouts who connected the palm oil in their cookies to the destruction of the rain forests in Indonesia and Malaysia and then, against all odds, convinced Kelloggs to change their palm oil procurement practices. Bringing these forest-climate stories to the public’s attention is an important strategy as we transition to a 100% sustainable marketplace.

By combining our expertise and our network, we’re putting together compelling climate solutions stories for award-winning television and film producers that explain how everyday actions like buying paper towels, soap, hamburgers, peanut butter and ice cream can have a big impact on our forests and our climate.

“We saw it. Forests cut. Trees laying on the ground. Burnt where they fell. It’s devastating. It’s heartbreaking.”
— Harrison Ford, SHOWTIME Climate Change Documentary "Years of Living Dangerously"

Who We Are

Forest Climate Connect is a project of Avoided Deforestation Partners, a non-profit organization that convenes public, private and civil society leaders to promote sustainable, deforestation-free practices around the world. The FCC project advances this mission through major media projects that galvanize the public support we need to save our forests and our climate.

Contact Project Director Jeff Horowitz:
jeff@forestclimateconnect.org