A Healthy Earth – Take a Glimpse into the Future on What Our Priorities Should Be!
In a recent World Economic Forum survey, over 1,000 leaders from academia, business, and politics were asked to evaluate 32 global risks over both a two-year and a 10-year horizon. Their conclusion? – Climate Change and its consequences will pose the greatest risk to the world.
Much-needed attention and resources are being diverted from newly emerging or rapidly accelerating risks to natural ecosystems, human health, security, digital rights and economic stability that could become crises and catastrophes in the next decade.”
Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World Economic Forum
An Innovative Response for the Road Ahead from Environmental Nonprofits
Climate Change. Biodiversity. Global Inequality. Sustainable Consumption.
We will all have to confront these pressing issues in the coming years, and The “ReWrite Our Story Restoration Generation” Roadmap was developed as a holistic action plan to address them through a collaboration between environmental nonprofits. It is founded on a proven Employ-to-Plant strategy, which — since 2007 — has focused on targeted, geo-localized restoration projects as the means of reviving vulnerable communities and providing living wages for their citizens. The program re-establishes mangrove forests to effectively combat climate change’s intertwined environmental and humanitarian challenges. In fact, this creation of sustainable livelihoods through landscape restoration is already reversing the current trajectory of both the environment and human well-being in under-served African communities.
Where to Begin? A Unique Location for a Prototype Program
First, let’s take a step back for a reality check and assess our current state of affairs. How well are we doing today as global stewards for people and planet? A few simple snapshot insights in each area can help us better understand what’s going on.
PEOPLE: 10% and 10 Seconds
– 10% of the world’s population lives off less than $1.90 a day.
– 1.4 million people die annually as a direct result of contracting diseases through poor water, sanitation and hygiene.
– We produce enough food for 150% of earth’s inhabitants, but hunger or malnutrition takes a life every 10 seconds.
PLANET: 2% and 50 Years
– 1-2% of forests across the globe are cut down each year, and around 30,000 species are being driven to extinction.
– The number of wildlife populations around the world has shrunk by nearly 70% in just 50 years!
Which begs the question – what would be the most appropriate initial location for implementing the ReWrite Our Story Roadmap? When we look at Madagascar, the world’s fourth largest island (and one of only 17 mega-diverse countries on earth), it has a lot of lessons to teach us about the above considerations. That’s ultimately why we chose it as the preferred geographic location for our initiative.
The positive impacts offered by the ReWrite Our Story program can be broken down into 4 key categories, and we cover how this specific location reaps important benefits within each of them. Furthermore, the unique makeup of Madagascar’s location and culture sets it up to multiply several-fold the potential benefits derived from implementing the program as a whole. Let’s look first at the human elements.
Global Inequality: Recognizing Social & Climate Justice
The entire continent of Africa has been responsible for less than 3% of total global emissions, yet it is now most likely to endure the worst impacts of climate change. For example, the climate resilience score for the island of Madagascar, is among the lowest on the continent.
The island nation has the third highest rate of extreme poverty in the world — over 80% of people live off less than $2.15 a day. Its population is also enduring the world’s first climate-induced famine.
To maximize the benefits for both people and planet, Madagascar was our focal point for the on-the-ground activities of the “ReWrite Our Story” Restoration Generation Roadmap. We’re proud of the fact that modest donations from individuals around the globe today are actually creating sustainable livelihoods and increased household income in its vulnerable communities.
By creating fair wage employment through carefully-structured land restoration projects, the ReWrite Our Story Roadmap changes the trajectory of lives for families living in extreme poverty. This means — and recent employee surveys support it — that the increase in household income from these critical undertakings has a direct impact on families’ abilities to reduce hunger, obtain healthcare, and gain access to safe water sources. In fact, drilling fresh water wells in project communities complements and expands reforestation efforts: The wells not only provide clean water for today’s daily needs, but they guarantee its availability for the long term.
The Employ-to-Plant land restoration movement now provides over 60,000 people globally with access to high-quality food. And, enhanced nutrition, together with income security, opens the door for better healthcare and education for over 40,000 families around the globe.
Biodiversity Loss: Restoration for Reviving the Entire Web of Life
Due to deforestation, more than 90% of the primary forests on Madagascar have already been destroyed. This devastating environmental loss has an even greater impact on the island because it is home to a distinct ecosystem and extraordinary wildlife — both evolved since its split from the African continent an estimated 160 million years ago. As a result, approximately 95 percent of its reptiles, 89 percent of its plant life, and 92 percent of its mammals exist nowhere else on Earth!
As you can see then, restoration of forests and habitats is especially critical to the preservation of biodiversity in an ecological “hotspot” like Madagascar. The Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) approach used as part of the ReWrite Our Story Roadmap encompasses the best of both reforestation and restoration: While reforestation tackles the natural or intentional regeneration of tree cover after forest loss, restoration goes beyond simply replanting trees. It aims to recover the structure, biodiversity and critical processes of the entire ecosystem, bringing back the rich web of life that was once present. This is a holistic approach that benefits global communities and ultimately the ecosystems we will all depend on for our planet’s future health.
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Vital work is also being done to support communities through the development of agroforestry, beekeeping, or conservation agriculture. These endeavors reduce pressure on the forests while simultaneously building incomes, food security, and improved nutrition —all, necessary outcomes for ensuring long-term resilience and climate restoration. So, in total, this multi-pronged approach delivers a host of key benefits: it mitigates deforestation, employs local community members, plants new trees, restores and maintains biodiversity, and increases sustainable livelihood options.
Climate Change Mitigation: Effective CO2 Removal & Climate Resilience
Mangroves are native to a limited band of global locations, including Madagascar. At the 600-hectare site adopted by the ReWrite Our Story Restoration Generation Roadmap, it currently takes just a $20 donation to create one full day of work to plant 100 mangroves — that means fair income for community members who participate!
Nothing is more critical to the global climate-change mitigation than removing existing carbon from the air as effectively and swiftly as possible. By focusing on the restoration of mangrove forests, we are mobilizing one of the world’s most effective natural means of carbon emission control. Compare these types of forests to terrestrial ones: Studies indicate that mangroves sequester up to 5 times the CO2 equivalent of a mature tropical rain-forest.
Take the “Race Against Time” Quick Quiz.
Are you really able to Acclimate to Climate Change?
Consider this: Mangroves’ super power with sequestration is just one reason why they are a key to tackling global climate change. Mangrove land restoration also provides vital habitats for wildlife and replenishes fisheries and estuaries — essential breeding grounds for ocean life. Just as important, they have a very dense root structure that helps to prevent harmful erosion and protect vulnerable coastlines from extreme events like rising seas and flooding. So overall, the Restoration Roadmap creates an enhanced level of climate resilience to address the challenges these vulnerable communities face due to global warming.
Sustainable Consumption: Information → Motivation → Action
At this point, we’ve yet to mention the final element of the ReWrite Our Story Restoration Roadmap. Many view it as a key ingredient of any program aimed at promoting a sustainable future: It’s about educating and inspiring people like you to act!
In fact, generating this voluntary willingness to embrace personal change is simply vital to conquering two of our biggest environmental threats: reducing CO2 emissions and getting to a sustainable global consumption rate. Perhaps the most exciting (while challenging) aspect of this operating principle is that it needs to happen — at scale — at the level of local communities and households themselves!
We provide help here in the form of our complimentary one-year subscription to a monthly information series called Sustainable Solutions. Through this great tool, every individual who contributes as little as $10 to the ReWrite Our Story Roadmap is not only battling climate change but ALSO educating themselves about how they can boost the cause even more, through simple lifestyle changes!
Sustainable Solutions content provides an easy-to-digest roadmap for creating your own low-carbon lifestyle. It’s a digital collection highlighting 12 practical contexts that heighten carbon sensitivity in our daily lives — like the principles of a Circular Economy, the critical importance of water, emissions reduction through home-life choices, the impact of travel, food waste…and much more! These carbon-certified insights can help you reduce your own future emissions by adapting the personal lifestyle choices you make today.
Take the “Race Against Time” Quick Quiz
How much do you think you actually know about The 21st Century Revolution in Renewables?
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In addition, so that all donors can stay informed on how their involvement and contributions are making a real difference, our envionmental nonprofit, Purpose on the Planet, also shares detailed annual reports on the overall progress and impact of the project — no matter what your donation level may be. Key metrics include areas such as: hectares under management; the number of landscape projects and individuals employed in under-served geographies; the number of women and youth employed; income diversification (i.e., beekeeping and agroforestry activities); and quantified carbon/greenhouse gas emissions removals!
Just as dropping a stone into water creates ripples far from the initial entry point, small actions with environmental nonprofits can lead to much bigger changes, even if we can’t see how far they extend! Full of on-the-ground insights, this 1-minute video provides a simple summary of how you can contribute to key environmental and humanitarian challenges by choosing to support the ReWrite Our Story Restoration Generation Roadmap yourself.
As you do so, your actions will be creating powerful, positive change for both people and planet, and you will personally be impacting 4 of the key issues that have been identified as the most significant challenges in our world for current and future generations.
