Lets Everyone Play a Part in Salvaging Our Planet
What could possibly motivate a superstar of Harrison Ford’s caliber to be filmed having his chest hair ripped off with a leg-waxing strip? In Mr. Ford’s case, it could be only one thing: something he cares about deeply.
In this humorous but extremely communicative public-service announcement for Conservation International, the Indiana Jones star is seen entering what appears to be a high-tech beauty salon. His voice-over says, “When rain forests get slashed and burned, it releases tons of carbon into the air we breathe. It changes our climate.…” Shortly he is seated, shirtless, in a stylist’s chair. As a frocked woman applies the waxing strip, he speaks to the camera: “Every bit of rain forest that gets ripped out over there…” (a close-up follows of the strip being briskly yanked, removing a neat portion of chest hair, then Ford looks back at the camera) “…really hurts us over here.”
So was launched, in May of this year, Conservation International’s “Protect an Acre” campaign, enabling anyone and everyone to save an acre or more of endangered forest.
“Protect an Acre is part of our larger campaign to raise awareness for the role of forests in helping mitigate climate change,” Beth Wallace, Vice President of Digital Marketing for Conservation International, told Organic Connections. “Our larger campaign points out that 20 percent of the world’s carbon emissions come from the destruction of forests. It’s a fact that many people aren’t aware of, and we wanted to raise awareness for that fact and also give people who want to take action a chance to help protect forests.”
The campaign and its accompanying Web experience are CI’s attempt to generate this awareness and to raise money to further their work in the 34 designated “biodiversity hotspots” throughout the world. CI’s scientific investigation has shown that over 50 percent of the world’s plant species as well as 42 percent of all terrestrial vertebrate species live in these 34 regions, the world’s most biologically rich but most threatened places. These include 8 in Africa, 13 in Asia-Pacific, 4 in Europe and Central Asia, 4 in North and Central America, and 5 in South America. The website allows the visitor to focus in on these regions and the specific areas targeted for protection.
Such focus is an experience that will definitely motivate one to donate. For example, under “South America” one finds the Tropical Andes. The richest and most diverse area on Earth, the Tropical Andes region contains about a sixth of all plant life on less than 1 percent of the world’s land surface. Among the plants is the Andean bromeliad—a species that requires 100 years to mature. Animal life includes the threatened yellow-eared parrot, the yellow-tailed woolly monkey and the spectacled bear. This hotspot also maintains the largest variety of amphibians in the world, with 664 distinct species. Alarmingly, almost 450 of these species are listed as threatened.
Although a quarter of its habitat still remains, the region is facing a variety of threats including mining, timber extraction, oil exploration and narcotics plantations, which are all expanding due to the continual growth of many large cities in the region. The cloud forests are facing increased pressure from hydroelectric dams. Invasive species such as the American bullfrog and grasses for cattle grazing are becoming problems as well.
But it’s obvious that the Protect an Acre program is making a difference. The campaign’s innovative website shows a screensized block of green forest divided into square “acres.” Mousing over the squares reveals individual names and the number of acres each person has donated to protect. So far, 18,000 acres have been saved, and more are being rescued by the minute.
A central red square invites viewers to “protect an acre now,” and clicking on it takes them to the appropriate page. Donating is affordable even in these uncertain economic times; the cost is $15 per acre, and you can start with as little as one acre.
Saving such regions is a task that CI has taken on effectively. Over the past three years CI, in conjunction with its partners, has conserved 143 million acres of forest—the equivalent of removing 10 million cars from the roads. Saving these lands means much more than protecting trees: it also protects the habitats of threatened and endangered species and preserves the livelihoods and incomes of local communities.
“CI feels that this is an important solution in the entire portfolio of projects that fight climate change,” said Wallace. “So many of the energy and technology solutions are years or even decades away from coming to reality. Protecting standing forests is something that we can do today and has an impact today.”
Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality is proud to be a partner in Conservation International’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business. If you would like to protect an acre or more of tropical forest, visit www.conservation.org and follow the link to the Protect an Acre program.
