Johan Eliasch offers his solution to climate change: buy your own rainforest

My interest in deforestation and its impact on climate change began a long time ago and led me to buy 400,000 acres of rainforest in the Amazonas in 2005. I believe that protecting the rainforest is very close to the hearts of many people. Why? Rainforests are beautiful places, but, more than that, they are very important in terms of biodiversity, their positive impact on climate change and for producing huge ecological services. This, in turn, is critical for maintaining the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.

Another reason why preventing rainforest deforestation is so important is because it is the third largest source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in the universe, a key contributor to climate change. Furthermore, reducing deforestation is a more affordable way of tackling climate change as it is comparatively cheaper than abatement options in other sectors. There are many complex reasons why deforestation occurs to such an extent. Two key drivers are weak governance and a lack of alternative incomes for the people who live in or near rainforests. The poor need somehow to feed their families, so cutting down trees and selling them or to clear land for cattle is a way to survive.

The land I purchased in 2005 had previously been used for a logging operation, which was conducted to the strictest standards and totally legal. However, the problem with any sort of logging operation is that it needs a lot of infrastructure, such as roads, to make it functional and the infrastructure then makes it very easy for illegal logging to take place. For the poorer communities with few other options to sustain themselves, illegally cutting down trees and selling the wood becomes a feasible way for them to make money.

When I bought the land I made an agreement with the local community whereby they could freely harvest the lands, including selling the nuts and fruits, so long as they protected the land from illegal logging. Rainforests are home to a variety of natural and lucrative products, for example, the Açaí berry, a very popular antioxidant. Normally, landowners would give the farmers only five per cent of the profits, while retaining 95 per cent for themselves. The trouble with managing these large areas of land is that you can have hundreds of guards and it would still be impossible to protect the forest because of its vastness. If, on the other hand, you have thousands of people who derive their livelihood from your lands, they will naturally become the custodians of the lands to protect their livelihoods. So, in that regard, our programme worked very well. Since we put it in place we haven’t had any reported incidents of illegal logging, and we have built a sustainable economy for the local communities who derive their livelihood from using the land in a sustainable way. This created a lot of new jobs.

Our work caught the eye of some people here in the UK. Among them were the former Prime Minister Tony Blair and the MP Frank Field. Frank called me up and said, “I think this is very interesting. Why don’t we do something like this on a big scale as a charitable foundation?” This is how Cool Earth was born. Frank and I co-founded Cool Earth, which collects donations and then selects local NGOs to donate money to for projects intended to support the conservation of forests in a sustainable manner. We have 38,000 members globally and it is rising by a thousand every month. To date, Cool Earth has managed to protect close to 50,000 acres of rainforest.

- Johan Eliasch is Gordon Brown’s special representative on deforestation and clean energy, and the co-founder and co-chairman of Cool Earth. He has recently published The Eliasch Review, which concluded that it is unlikely that we will be able to tackle climate change without reducing deforestation, (www.coolearth.org).

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