Hello friends! Today I have Bruce Calhoun, President of Save the Rainforest with me. He is going to share about his work to preserve rainforests. I thought it would be a nice change to talk about the passion in life that can be shared with others through our work in life and an autobiography.
Exploring the woods behind his house while he was growing up in rural Wisconsin, going to college in Fairbanks, Alaska, working passage on a tramp freighter, fending off oceanic sharks on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, filming lowland gorillas in Africa, sailing the waters of the Bahamas, teaching marine biology in Puerto Rico and founding Save the Rainforest in 1988 are but a few of the highlights in Bruce Calhoun’s life. Other highlights include writing an award winning play, an autobiography and his latest novel, Ardennia. Currently he is serving as president of Save the Rainforest and living in Southwestern Wisconsin with his beloved wife.
Rainforests, Climate Change and My Book
by Bruce Calhoun, President of Save the Rainforest
The history of Save the Rainforest
In the summer of 1988 there were eight thousand fires burning in the Amazon and the world was experiencing the hottest temperatures on record. I spent that summer traveling throughout Costa Rica taking photographs of the rainforest and of rainforest destruction.
That fall I gave a slide presentation to my Dodgeville High School students. They were amazed by the beauty and biodiversity of the rainforest, but appalled by the images of deforestation. They asked me what we could do. I said we could go door to door and raise funds to purchase rainforest that would become part of the International Children’s Rainforest in Monteverde, Costa Rica.
And so we did, and we raised $350 – enough to buy ten acres. What happened next was extraordinary. We mailed – yes mailed – letters to 10,000 biology teachers across the United States and asked them and their students to do what we had done. That is how Save the Rainforest got started.
Now it is 33 years later and despite our efforts, and the protests of a new generation of environmentalists like Greta Thunberg, the fires are still burning and the temperature is still rising.
So what do we do now?
My answer to that question is this:
We build on what has already been done, and using the tools of modern technology and our sense of urgency, expand upon programs that incentivize rainforest preservation.
One such program is supporting the efforts of indigenous communities located in the rainforest to preserve their culture and safeguard the forests under their jurisdiction. Save the Rainforest works with the Yakum in Ecuador. But they are only one of an estimated 3100 indigenous communities in the Amazon Basin. Fortunately there are other conservation groups like Rainforest Partnerships, Conservation International and The Rainforest Trust that are committed to working with indigenous groups, as well. To support such work the parties to the Glasgow Climate Summit have just earmarked 1.7 billion dollars for this purpose
Another thing we can do, which overlaps with the above, is strengthen and implement the UN’s REDD program. This program rewards ‘good players’ who protect rather than destroys the tropical forests in their prevue. Technology comes into play here, for monetary rewards are based on measurable results and strict monitoring through satellite imaging and LIDAR. Again, the Glasgow Climate Summit attendees have offered up billions of dollars (20 Billion) to fund REDD and similar initiatives that are intended to bring deforestation to an end by 2030.
Finally, we wean ourselves off palm oil and cheap beef; as well as a few other things like coffee that is not grown to the agroforestry standards set by such watchdogs as The Rainforest Alliance.
If we can do these things and practice sustainable ecotourism, agriculture and animal husbandry our goals to reduce carbon emissions through nature based solutions can be reached.
Close Calls and Foolhardy Romances: The Maturation of an Environmentalist
My autobiography, published by Lost Coast Press in 1999, is a narrative about my formative years and the founding of Save the Rainforest in 1988. In it I state some statistics that are now outdated, but give the reader a sense that we have not been good stewards of our planet and need to start doing the things I said we should be doing thirty years ago. The book is actually more relevant today than ever, and is available on Amazon.
For more about Close Calls, Save the Rainforest and me you can visit https://www.literaryworksbrucecalhoun.com/index.html
Thank you so much for joining me and Bruce today! I hope you enjoyed learning about Save the Rainforests. It is wonderful to learn about an endeavour that has been going on decades!
Image within guest post provided by author. Cover Photo by vaun0815 on Unsplash. Creator’s Roulette graphic by Kriti.
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