To put it simply, TFG is making a real positive difference for tropical forests with very little money.
You may know of us because we’re good at mobilizing massive media events that put pro-forest pressure on UN diplomats at climate change negotiations. Every year in December, normally about 10,000 diplomats and observers wrangle about global climate change policy. Since 2005, a lot of this wrangling has to do with tropical forests and how best to help conserve them. In Montreal (2005), a cadre of people who eventually became TFG organized a march to support the concept of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries). To delegates and world media, we showed that there was massive pubic support for including tropical forest conservation in a new climate change accord. In 2007, we hired local rainforest dancers and choreographers in Bali, capturing the media attention of the world. Our 85 person delegation landed front-page articles about the UN negotiations and importance of rainforests. We call press conferences when negotiations bog down. We do large visually impressive pro-forest media work because it works. Over the past few years, TFG has been a leading force in getting tropical forests on the front pages of websites, newspapers, radios and TV. This year, in December in Copenhagen, will be our biggest event ever. We are raising funds to organize thousands of human rainforest umbrellas to form a canopy around the crucial round of UN negotiations. We have met with local authorities about permission to install rainforests kiosks throughout Copenhagen to educate the host country about rainforest and climate change. You can check out a prototype image and description here.
What you may not know is that most the people involved with TFG are not the protest/march/hold-up-posters type of people. A few of us are, or we can be. But most of us are scientists or policy wonks. Those rather quiet steadfast folks who avoid bullhorns. TFG also has graduate students, law students, on-the-ground conservationists, artists, home-builders, cinematographers, and dog walkers on board. What unites this diverse group is a desire to save tropical forests, fight climate change, and improve the lives of people living in and around forests.
We work with community forest projects to get support they need in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
We pro-actively suggest ways the US administration can lead on climate change and tropical forests.
And we contribute to the academic and institutional underpinnings behind the scenes.
All of our efforts are to accomplish one thing: mobilize more money, better spent, to save tropical forests as fast as possible. We run a streamlined office with the majority of TFG workers either volunteer or low paid affiliates.
And by the way, we forgot to mention. Tropical forests are just about the coolest thing in the Universe. They harbor more life than any other ecosystem that humans have been able to discover (and then ruin). Tropical forests have lots of carbon. They do lots of great things for this planet. That is why we call ourselves the Tropical Forest Group. We like Tropical Forests. And we are a Group. And we have fun which should get us extra points, right? Thank you for considering giving us TFG a hand financially, so we can continue our good work. It has been a really bad century for tropical forests. Please Donate |
