This is a video created for Prince Charles’ Rainforests Project, with one very lucky little frog. Quite a few people I would love to meet in this clip… *sigh* Why but of course, I meant Kermitt the Frog! Who else really.. ☺
More seriously, the oldest ones amongst us might remember an earlier awareness campaign to save the rainforest, spearheaded by Sting in the late 80′s, with the Amazonian Chief Raoni in tow. Maybe it was because I was still so very young and candid, but I really felt that the message had been heard and that all the regional governments concerned would act. Yeah. I know, I know… I was THAT young. And those were the days when we just had the certainty that things would change on our watch. Such foolish arrogance!
It’s been 20 years. We’ve all grown – as demonstrated quite efficiently by two all-growed-up boys named William and Harry – and gone on with our lives. Sure enough, there are so many worthy causes out there, so many wars to stop, so much suffering to alleviate, so much injustice to denounce. And let’s be blunt: forests do not hold press conferences. Neither can they pack up in a hurry and flee for their lives to some UN refugee camp across a border. They also die quite noiselessly. Just a large crack followed by the whooshing sound of the leaves slicing through the air as the tree hits the ground.
No worries… No harm done. Only a few plants. Animals can always move further. Humans can be relocated. And surely we cannot forbid developing countries the right to exploit their own resources. Yadda yadda yadda… It’s just trees, really. It’s not like we’re hurting anyone.
And yet…
If we don’t take action, we could lose another 100 million hectares of tropical forests over the next 10 years – that’s an area the size of Egypt.
Saving the rainforests will give the world a better chance to achieve its goals of stabilising climate change, while also preserving important ecosystem benefits, not to mention the fact that over one billion of the poorest people on Earth depend on the rainforests for their livelihoods.
It’s just a simple signature and maybe a few spare dollars. But together we can go a long way to make sure that our great-great-great grandchildren (and all the generations in between) can still breathe enough clean air to climb the few trees we left them.
