Solar Lights Up the Rainforest

PURE Energies designs and installs residential solar systems in Ontario, Canada and in 35 states across the U.S. They don’t actually build any particular technology. Rather, they have developed a comprehensive online marketplace in residential solar. Through their proprietary platform, PURE Energies delivers a time-saving, complete analysis of the benefits solar energy offers homeowners, free of charge. In doing so, PURE energies has become a highly trusted advisor in the North American solar energy market.

The company’s CEO, Zbigniew Barwicz, is all about sustainable living, so much so that one day he decided to take some of his employees to the Amazon to see how the Kayapo, an indigenous people who have existed in the rainforest for eons, live sustainably. What could the techie Californians learn from the Kayapo – and vice versa?

As it turns out, the answer is: lots. The techie team, led by the International Conservation Fund of Canada, spent two weeks living alongside the indigenous Kayapo. They participated in their traditions, explored the Amazon basin, and learned how the Kayapo live in harmony with the world around them. (You can read more about their journey here.)

Why the Amazon? Because It’s Amazing!

• For one, the Amazon Rainforest helps stabilize the world’s climate by storing carbon and reducing the impacts of climate change.

• Even more amazing, more than 20% of all oxygen in out atmosphere is produced in the Amazon Rainforest.

• A single hectare in the Amazon Rainforest contains up to 450 species of trees. Compare that to the entire country of Canada, which has only a total of 180 species of trees.

• Twenty-five percent of Western medicines come from tropical forest ingredients, yet only 1% of tropical trees and plants in the rainforest have been tested by scientists.

• There are more species of fish in the Amazon River – one river – than are found in the entire Atlantic Ocean.

It’s Also Threatened…

• The destruction of the Amazon rainforest has increased by almost one-third in the past year, the Guardian reported last year, reversing a decade-long trend of better protection for the world’s greatest rainforest.

• In fact, a high-resolution satellite analysis of global deforestation revealed that since 2000 an area equal to 50 football fields has been destroyed every minute.

• The total loss is 10 times the area of the United Kingdom. Only a third of that is being replaced by natural and planted reforestation.

Enter PURE Energies

PURE Energies’ CEO Barwicz wanted to see what was going on for himself, and help if he could.

The adventure was pretty eye opening. The Kayapo people effectively protect an area of rainforest that is bigger than more than half of the countries in the world and equal to the size of Virginia. Every day, their land is threatened by loggers, ranchers and miners. They respond by living in the sustainable way that has sustained them for eons. But they’ve also become savvy about tapping into media channels to help raise awareness about they threats they face, and that the globe faces, if their forests are destroyed. They’ve formed non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to obtain national and international conservation and development support for protecting their lands. And they’re developing non-timber forest products to generate modest income they use to purchase some modern-day supplies.

To help, PURE Energies distributed Goal Zero solar powered lanterns to the Kayapo Tribe in Kendjam, Brazil. The lanterns will be used to build their social enterprises, to help deliver babies at night, and for nighttime social gatherings.

Kayapo Light up PURE Energies

The PURE Energies expedition team, meanwhile, was amazed at what they learned about living simply and without fire in the Amazonian basin. They were so inspired, they have released a 5-part video series that touches on the topics of independence, courage, and leadership – all traits they observed among the Kayapo.

“For PURE, independence means giving homeowners the decision to take control of their energy bill and to make their own choices. Gone are the days where energy is without options,” said CEO Barwicz. “We are entering a new era, where homeowners have the potential to generate and directly use their own power. Through this trip, we will learn the truest form of independence and convey those learnings to the homeowners of America.”

You can catch more of this great adventure on the series airing this week and continuing until January. I encourage you to follow their journey here.

The post Solar Lights Up Rainforest; Rainforest People Light Up Solar Company appeared first on Big Green Purse.

Not everything was on fire  – because much of it had already been burned and cleared. A patchwork of thin, pale green rectangles intermingled with darker, bubbly patches that indicated intact forest. But I couldn’t help but worry that the amount of forest left serves more like an invitation to clearcutters than a deterrent.

Oscar, my guide for the next four days, confirmed that that was the case. As we boarded a long, narrow motor boat for our five-hour trip into the wilds that host the Heath River Wildlife Center, the rainforest specialist noted that fires and clearcuts remain the biggest threat facing the region known for serving as the “globe’s lungs.”

“Why is the forest being cleared?” I asked, thinking the answer was linked to consumer demand for mahogany, teak and other exotic woods.

Oscar acknowledged that logging is a major problem. But, he said, agriculture also figures substantially into the destruction equation. “Raising cattle and growing soybeans leave a big scar on the land,” he said. “You want prestige in the Amazon, you clear the forest, grow crops, and make money. It’s as simple as that.”

Independent research from various scientists as well as groups like Mongo Bay , the Nature Conservancy, and Greenpeace verify that raising cattle, growing soybeans and logging are the most damaging forces behind rainforest destruction. Though most studies have focused on Brazil, Peru isn’t immune to the same marketplace forces. While many fastfood restaurants in the U.S. have pledged not to use beef or soy products grown on recently deforested tracts of land, the Asian and European markets haven’t been so responsible. And consumers everywhere continue to buy tropical woods because they are beautiful, unusual, and resistant to rot.

The impact of consumer demand is making itself felt in Peru. As MongoBay.com points out, about half of this medium-sized country is forested. Of this, more than 80 percent is classified as primary forest. In other words, it’s never been cut. Nevertheless, the international Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the country loses somewhere between 224,000 and 300,000 hectares of forest per year.

Notes Mongo Bay: “Currently most logging in Peru is illegal. One scientist at the Research Institute of the Peruvian Amazon estimates that 95 percent of the mahogany logged in the country is harvested illegally. Because the wood is so valuable, traffickers are known to cut trees inside national parks and reserves. They also have little to fear: as of early 2006, not a single commercial logger had been imprisoned in Peru for illegal logging.”

A further source of deforestation and environmental degradation in the Peruvian Amazon, says MongoBay.com, is gold mining. “Peru’s forests are home to alluvial gold deposits that are pursued by large-scale operators and informal, small-scale miners. Both kinds of operators rely heavily on hydraulic mining techniques, blasting away at river banks, clearing floodplain forests, and using heavy machinery to expose potential gold-yielding gravel deposits.

“Mercury contamination and increased river sedimentation can be a problem downstream from operations, while mining roads can open remote forest areas to transient settlers and land speculators. Further, shantytowns that spring up in areas believed to hold gold deposits increase pressure on forests for building material, bushmeat, fuelwood, and agricultural land.”

Indeed, during the first two hours of our boat trip, we saw at least a dozen prospectors industrially sifting gravel in their search for gold. Eventually, they would use mercury to bind small gold chunks into bigger nuggets, and think nothing of washing all the residue into the same river water that serves as their kids’ swimming hole — as well as the water source for Peru’s 2,937 known species of amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles, according to figures from the World Conservation Monitoring Centre. Of these, 16.0 percent are endemic, meaning they exist in no other country, and 7.6 percent are threatened. In addition, Peru is home to at least 17,144 species of vascular plants, of which 31.2 percent are endemic.

Scott Paul, the Director of Forest Campaigns for Greenpeace USA, says the marketplace can play a critical role in helping to curb rainforest destruction. Already, McDonald’s in the U.S. and Europe has pledged not to use products – including beef and soy-based feed for chickens – produced in newly cleared rainforests as a way to discourage further forest destruction. Home Depot minimizes the amount of wood it buys from rainforests and sources as much wood as possible from producers that meet the sustainable forestry criteria established by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Paul credits consumer pressure as well as high-profile publicity campaigns like those Greenpeace wages for these successes.

“I’ve seen individual consumer actions change government and corporate policies,” he says. The way people spend their money can be “insanely effective” in persuading companies to safe the rainforest rather than destroy it.

Paul says here in the U.S., consumers can take two key steps to protect the Amazonian basin.

*  Buy locally produced food. Read labels and look for products made in America. Choose locally-raised beef and chickens, an increasing feature at farmer’s markets, food co-ops and natural-food grocery stores. Avoid canned meat. Apart from the fact that a “food” like this sounds unappealing to begin with, it is also one way that Latin American producers are sneaking their goods into the marketplace. Most tofu and other soy-based foods are made from soybeans grown in the U.S., so for the moment, anyway, Paul says that purchasing those goods won’t impact the rainforest either way.

* Buy FSC-certified wood. When choosing flooring, indoor or outdoor furniture, patio decking or other wood products, make sure the wood has been produced from a certified sustainable forest. Pier 1 and Crate and Barrel earned four stars from National Wildlife Federation for the sustainable garden furniture they offer.

Oscar, my Peruvian guide, would add:

* Support sustainable tourism. “Owning and running an eco-lodge is fast approaching cattle ranching and farming as a prestige occupation in Peru,” he says. “And it’s far better for the forest because protecting the forest ecosystem is key if lodge owners and their employees are going to make any money.”

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