My Beautiful Forest Trust
Introducing a new page, here on this website:
In March 1999, I had the privilege of founding the Tropical Forest Trust or TFT.
In the subsequent 20 years, and two organisation name changes later, I was involved in some wonderful breakthroughs. Captured in the so-called, ‘Big 7,’ my work with TFT helped transition the wooden garden furniture sector to FSC furniture.
I supported the development of FSC certification in the Congo Basin forest sector. My TFT work supported Indonesia’s State-owned Teak corporation develop benefit sharing agreements with communities and remove more than 4,000 weapons from Rangers’ hands so that no one has been shot or killed in the plantations since 2009.
In an intense and hugely challenging and stressful period from March 2010 to December 2013, my TFT work supported:
Nestlé to announce the world’s first No Deforestation commitment,
Golden Agri Resources to follow and launch the palm oil industry’s first ever Forest Conservation/No Deforestation Policy,
Asia Pulp and Paper to launch its No Deforestation policy, and
Wilmar, the world’s largest palm oil company, to launch its far reaching No Deforestation, No Exploitation and No Peatland Clearance policy.
These were heady times.
At the end of 2015, I stepped aside as TFT CEO and supported the transition to a new leadership team. The organisation changed name in early 2019 to Earthworm Foundation and I ultimately left on May 31st that year.
I’ve chronicled some of the events in a new page here on my website. Called, ‘My Beautiful Forest Trust,’ I’ve not gone into massive detail, though there are some insights there that I plan to develop further in a new book, whose working title is, “The Secret Sacred Art of Duck Whispering.”
I learned so many lessons during that amazing 20 year period. It’s these that I’m sharing with the world now as part of my work with a different way Limited and The Pond Foundation.
I wrote here and elsewhere on this website that my work has pivoted to focusing on people. In reality, my work has always focused on people - supporting them and inspiring them to believe in themselves and their power to make a difference in the world.
As the world begins to be engulfed by climate change and climate despair, I truly feel it’s the TFT spirit, of running toward problems rather than away from them, that’s needed now more than ever.
I hope that this new page outlining some of the story of my TFT work can inspire others, particularly the young, to dive in and see what good they can do in the world. The last thing we need now is to be daunted by the scale of the challenge before us.
We must act. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.