Prince Charles Launches His Rainforest Project Website
Prince Charles has today launched the official website for his Rainforest Project. As I mentioned earlier, today is World Environment Day, so it’s a perfect day for launching a website aimed at saving the rainforests.
The main aim of the project, which launched on October 25 last year, is to make the rainforests “more valuable alive than dead”. Today, in many developing countries, rainforests are worth more dead than alive. This is mainly due to demand from developed countries for beef, palm oil, and soya.
When launching the Rainforest Project at a WWF dinner in October last year, Prince Charles said that rainforest destruction is responsible for around 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, second only to the energy sector. Further to this, both the Stern review and the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change report believe tackling deforestation may be one of the quickest and most cost effective means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the short term.
Prince Charles also said the following about the deforestation issue:
It seems to me that the central issue in this whole debate is how we put a true value on standing rainforests to the world community – we simply have to find ways of putting a price on them which makes them more valuable alive than dead.
Elaborating on this, Prince Charles says the project’s objective is:
To find innovative ways of paying the countries that are the custodians of the tropical rainforests an appropriate price for the eco-system services they provide and so out-compete the drivers of deforestation.
In today’s money driven society, this makes a lot of sense. After all, if countries are paid more for their eco-systems services than they are for the drivers of deforestation, then they will no longer allow their own rainforests to be destroyed. Furthermore, not only will they see value in keeping their existing rainforests, they will also see value in increasing the size of their rainforests - after all, more rainforest means more money.
How Will The Project Achieve Its Objective?
The project is engaging with rainforest nations, governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations to find the solutions to deforestation.
The project is also backed by 13 major global companies: Shell, Rio Tinto Zinc, McDonald’s, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Sun Media, Sky, Deutsche Bank, Man Group, KPMG, Barclays Bank, Finsbury and the European Climate Exchange.
Furthermore, the project is being advised by experts including: Lord Stern; Steve Howard, Chief Executive of the Climate Group; Kevin Conrad, the Executive Director of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations; Andrew Mitchell of the Global Canopy Programme; Kristalina Georgieva, Vice President of the World Bank; Reijo Kempinnen, head of the European Commission Representation in the UK; and Barry Gardiner MP.
How You Can Help
You can pledge your support on the Prince’s Rainforest Project website.
Video of Prince Charles Introducing the Rainforest Project
Here’s a video of Prince Charles introducing the Rainforest Project, as well as explaining why he feels this is such an important cause.
Tags: Climate Change, deforestation, Global Warming, logging, rainforests
June 29th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Great article… and don’t forget the benefits that planting a tree will have on the environment. Each one will soak up 20kgs of CO2 every year and put enough Oxygen back in the atmosphere to support 2 people.
October 6th, 2008 at 1:55 am
[...] recently wrote about the Prince’s Rainforest Project website - the website for Prince Charles’ Rainforest Project. As mentioned in that article, the [...]
May 6th, 2009 at 7:04 am
I watched the new commercial this morning on Good Morning America with the frogs and I loved it. I am a frog lover and it got me interested enough to check out the website. I am glad that I did. The Rainforest is an awesome place and one that needs to be protected. Keep up the good work on this project and I hope to get more information soon!
November 5th, 2009 at 4:15 am
We propagate awareness on planting Ocimum sps. (Basil) to protect ozone . We seek help in this project
Viswanathan
PARAMPARA,
Chennai
India
April 12th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Recycle paper, garden waste, glass, metal and plastics. Changed light bulbs to low energy and wear more jumpers instead of switch about the central heating.
January 14th, 2011 at 4:48 am
‘Bonus’ Bob Diamond came out of his recent questioning by British MPs well enough… but along with a whole load of other bankers I reckon he’s still going to be wearing an orange jumpsuit in the near future - and not a moment too soon!
February 4th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
I read a lot of text, blogs, journals on climate change as I think it’s all fascinating - the current argument for global warming is very much based on the fundamental evidence, of which, a substantial amount is obtained from tree ring patterns. These tree rings are correlated to temperature. However, I just read something very interesting in a new book that is not even in print yet, that shows the contrary. That tree rings are actually not linked to temperature changes at all, and that the true cause is sun spot activity, has profound implications. I think you’ll be hearing a lot more about this new evidence in months to come when the book gets released. If you want to check it out online now, it’s at http://www.blindedbyscience.co.uk