What began to dawn on me was that wherever I went, man’s
impact on his beautiful, robust yet fragile home was very apparent.
As the miles climbed so the joined-up scale of this environmental
impact gripped me; the expansion of cities and towns, the massive
road systems being built, burgeoning industries, aeroplanes constantly
overhead, forests giving way to farmland. What chance did nature have
against such demands and consumption by her premier species?
It was in Guatemala, with something like 30,000 miles on
the clock, that these troubled thoughts, and particularly the overt
deforestation going on in Central America, that I started wondering if
there was something that Illustration Ltd could do to help nature and
her fight for survival. Finding a real way to help is a challenge in itself.
Illustration by Tim Bradford (www.illustrationweb.com/timbradford)
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The great challenge of our era is to learn to work
in balance with nature . . . by donating 1% of our
turnover we aim to plant 1m trees every five years.
Inspiration finally came from Let My People Go Surfing by
Yvon Chouinard of the outdoor clothing company Patagonia, lent to
me by JP, my colleague Stacey’s husband in America. In the book
Chouinard describes how as a company they had to accept being
party to environmentally damaging practices and how they elected to
dedicate 1% of their revenue to invest in projects that enable nature to
thrive. In December 2012 my colleagues and I decided to donate 1% of
our turnover to reforestation, aiming to plant 1 million trees every five
years. To achieve our aim we have partnered with WeForest who offer
practicable solutions that can potentially clawback nature into her own
hands, whilst benefiting and restoring local communities and weather.
WeForest aims to plant 2 trillion trees which is designed to help restore
Earth’s temperatures to what nature naturally dictates.
Let me be clear that not for one moment do I advocate anyone
around the world not having the same opportunities that we enjoy in
more developed countries. It is the great challenge of our era to learn
to work in balance with nature so that all of us can have more in terms
of energy sources, mass and individual transport, healthy lifestyles,
healthy foods and healthy communities. This means evolving from our
more nature-consuming ways and Illustration is delighted to be part of a
burgeoning movement of companies investing in a healthy planet.
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