The Burning Rainforest Is About Business Economics. Here’s How Your Business Can Help.
Right now, the Amazon Rainforest is on fire. 26,000 fires to be exact. It’s burning because of business economics. So, you as a business, can play a role in helping to fix a rainforest on fire.
Let me explain why. The Amazon Rainforest is the source of unparalleled bio diversity, containing over 2.5 million species. It produces 20% of the world’s oxygen. It’s also one of the few natural barriers to global warming, absorbing vast amounts of carbon dioxide. The less rainforest available the less oxygen available for us to breath, and the faster global warming accelerates.
The Amazon rainforest is also a source of perceived financial wealth. Before we poo-poo this, let’s remember in the world we have constructed people need money to eat.
What we are seeing in the Amazon is a conflagration caused by people who believe their livelihoods are being threatened by a natural ecosystem and a politician who fanned the flames of dissension.
A Short Modern History Of Brazil and the Rainforest
In the 70’s and 80’s, the military led government of Brazil wanted to make the country more prosperous. They had one tremendous natural resource: the rainforest. So, they began to cut down trees and mine the earth beneath the forest. A global outcry ensued and the logging was eventually reduced. Logging continued to be minimal…until times got bad.
In 2015, Brazil went into a recession and many people lost their jobs. Poor people who had no wish to live on the edge of the rainforest nevertheless felt forced to do illegal logging, simply to make a living.
Flash forward several years, Jair Bolsonaro is elected President of Brazil. He ran on a platform of calling environmental regulations a racket. When Bolsonaro was elected, he drastically cut funds to environmental regulation agencies.
Who got him elected? In part, farmers and ranchers, who been sent to the rainforest, decades earlier, by the government. Some farmers felt they still couldn’t make a living and that they were being demonized in the press by urban environmentalists. Some, like ranchers, felt they were being held back from greater financial success. After all, Brazil is the number one exporter of beef. One of the things holding them back from selling even more beef is the amount of available pasture for cattle grazing.
Do these dynamics sound familiar? It might sound familiar when you learn that Bolsonaro has been called the “Trump of the Tropics.”
When environmental protection funding was rolled back, illegal deforestation activities ramped up. Deforestation is directly correlated with more forest fires. Illegal seasonal burnings also increased. Seasonal burnings are usually done by ranchers to clear the land for cattle grazing. You might now understand the financial incentive to raze the forest into pasture. But scientists tell us that when too much of the rainforest is transformed into savannah it may never regenerate back into forest.
Even though there are environmental regulations in place to maintain the delicate balance, Brazil’s environmental protection agency has been so decimated by cuts that they can’t investigate, cease or prosecute illegal forest burnings.
You Only Win Zero Sum Games in the Short Term
What we are seeing in the Amazon rainforest is called a Zero-Sum Game. It’s the belief that only one group can win: people trying to make a livelihood or the environment. These games always end badly in the long term and I’m about to show you how.
Evan Delahanty met these disgruntled farmers first hand, when he joined the Peace Corps and moved to Brazil. He saw big companies come in and offer to pay local farmers for their rainforest land. These big companies then clear cut the forest which involves cutting down every last tree and decimating the habitat. Then they create huge plantations of palm and soy, ingredients that are found in many of our products. But despite the environmental devastation, everyone made a living… for a time.
The local rainforest farmers sold their land and lived off the money they made for a while. Until the money ran out and then they had … NOTHING. They had no land and no way to make a living.
Evan started Peaceful Fruits to created a win-win solution that specifically protects the rainforest. He created an organic fruit bar that pays people a living wage to harvest fruit that grows naturally in the rainforest. That’s why their fruit bars come in many tropical flavors such as mango and passionfruit because those fruits grow naturally in the rainforest. In addition, most of the bars are drizzled with Acai berries, which also grow natively in the rainforest. Acai berries also happen to be a health craze among American consumers, because they are packed with nutrients.
Peaceful Fruits is a business model that seeks to maintain the balance between environmental preservation and human economics. They give a financial incentive to keep the forest intact and create a healthy, delicious product.
The Triple Bottom Line: People, Planet and Profit
There are many people, like Evan, trying to create win-win solutions. Our goal, at Verdant Trade, is to give businesses options to purchase wholesale inventory, from companies like Peaceful Fruits, inventory that is environmentally sensitive, socially responsible and profitable.
All of life is a delicate balance. Every inventory item you purchase might just look like an ordinary good, but it’s infused with connection to every habitat and person it’s touched along the way. Seek items that maintain the balance between people, planet and profit.
