Left: “The Cabin” at Sweden’s Treehotel Right: looking up into the forest canopy in Colombia
Looking to the future An unsustainable pressure is mounting on our environment. The effects of climate change – wildfires, flooding, drought and storms – as well as industries such as mining, logging and agriculture threaten the survival of forests worldwide, from Australia’s Daintree Rainforest to the dense Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda. Innovative projects now look to counter these threats and bring about positive change. People from many countries and cultures are committed to enabling future generations to, literally and metaphorically, be protected by trees' shelter and magnificence. Indigenous Amazon communities in Colombia have taken the protection of the rainforest into their own hands, a new generation of community leaders recognised as the key to protecting the forest against mining, logging and farming. Elders are training younger members not only to preserve their culture but also to use connections to build lines of communication with government officials and mining companies. In Tanzania, a mutually beneficial business idea has grown from the baobab. Women from local communities, who have harvested baobab fruit for centuries, have begun selling new products: delicious jams 22
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and vitamin-C-rich skin products. Due to the success of their small businesses, landowners have begun to preserve baobab woodlands, instead of cutting them down for fuel and farming. Conservation is now at the core of some luxury camps, lodges and boutique hotels, which look to minimise the impact on the environment by building around or within forests rather than cutting them down. Lapa Rios in Costa Rica, Sweden’s tree-top Treehotel and Ecuador’s Mashpi Lodge offer an unrivalled connection to nature by working with trees rather than against them. The cultural significance of trees is also being marked in the United Kingdom. The UK Tree Charter has set out ten principles, supported by councils, community groups, schools and churches, to cement the positive relationship between trees and people. Part of their research included collecting 60,000 emotive and inspiring stories from individuals who explain why trees are so important to them.
