2:00 Zach introduces himself and explains Community Forests International who works communities adapt to climate change

2:35 Zach explains how the idea started in a tree planting plant in Ontario

3:57 Zach explains how he was inspired by his friend Jeff Schnurr’s project to reforest Pemba Island

5:46 Greg explains his experience of deforestation in Haiti related to the need to use fire to heat their food.

6:19 Zach talked to the impacts that resource pressures had on deforestation and how they try to take a holistic view to their projects.

7:13 Going in to a situation and saying you have a solution, it’s a solution, it’s a problem. Zach speaks to the need to have humiliate and accept that they weren’t the experts.

7:50 Zach shares how they were able to work with a local woman who had a better performing stove to help facilitate the growth of using that method versus the more traditional stoves.

9:00 Dave asked about how they tie their business into New Brunswick and how the experience they have else where ties back to what they do other places.

9:25 Zach speaks to how the business grew and how their early success in Pemba made them realize anything is possible.

10:25 Dave asks about New Brunswick based projects

10:30 Zach tells how for a long time they would find connections through a grapevine effect of what would be possible in New Brunswick and learn everything they need to know about forests in New Brunswick.

11:46 Zach says what we have right now is trees and how his friend Dale, challenges us to think about trees as a new technology.

12:40 Zach speaks to his frustration of how we talk about climate change and how we just need to make change and everyone’s lives will get better.

13:30 Dave asks Zach to expand on ideas like carbon forestry and how they are creating opportunities

13:50 Zach says our two resources are people and our forests.

14:18 The Acadian forest is endangered forest type. It has a low incidence of burning because of the diversity and moist climate.

14:55 We have a unique opportunity because we have trees and not every where in the world has them. They are a carbon vacuum.

15:20 The world is starting to value what trees can do before they are cut.

15:50 As an organization, they want to help rural communities be healthy and forests to be healthy

16:25 For them they value both of these aspects and aren’t looking for solutions that puts one above the other to find a solution that benefits people and environment

17:04 Zach explains Carbon Forestry as a way to protect forests and put them under forest management. They manage how much can be cut and the carbon value that forests give.

17:50 Greg explains his involvement in the project and the B-Corp connection to it and how this project allows his company, Hemmings House, to off-set their carbon footprint as a company.

19:38 Greg explains to how Hemmings House is tracking their airfare and their carbon footprint and Community Forests International is able to give them a figure of what investment they should make in order to offset that use.

20:50 Zach explains how it’s a new initiative and how the leadership that companies like Hemmings House protects is a new way of getting involved.

21:57 Zach explains how there is a 95% chance that when land changes hand from old to young that the forest will be clear cut.

22:50 Dave asks what exactly what people purchase from Community Forests International

23:15 Greg explains how it’s more of an investment in the management of the property but CFI continues to manage the land.

24:00 What people are really doing are protecting the forests by putting a conservation easement on the properties.

24:42 Part of these agreements is a harvest of the forests, but in a managed way.

25:00 Dave mentions Matthew Mclean and explains his experience of walking through a clear cut forest vs a managed forest

26:00 Dave says how it’s amazing how these aspects can be done by still creating profit.

26:27 Greg mentions how Craig Norris directed a film to tell the story our of Pemba

26:51 Zach explains how the film has won 7 awards across 35 film festivals and has been picked up by National Geographic.

You can see the film here: https://forestsinternational.org/campaign/islands-of-hope

27:51 Film is currently at 200,000 views mark.

28:11 Zach is most proud of the fact that in Tanzania it was picked up by 3 national broadcasters and reached an audience of 2.5 million people there.

29:02 Zach explains how to get in touch and get involved.