The man who grew his own Amazon rainforest - BBC World Service — Transcript

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1. 1:02People thought I was mad. But I've watched this whole paradise disappear
2. 1:05to the point where seeing a wild animal alive is a luxury.
3. 1:14All the big trees are gone, except for the ones in completely inaccessible places,
4. 1:19so I said to myself: 'I've got to do something to save these species.'
5. 2:05You can find the most spectacular things in the forest.
6. 2:09The bees aren't gathering nectar, they're gathering perfume.
7. 3:09Our idea is that anybody around the world can sell anything
8. 3:13that promotes the restoration of an ecosystem.
9. 3:15It's like you might hire somebody to come and clean your house,
10. 3:19or to come and fix your foundations from termites or whatever.
11. 3:23It's not something that brings you something tangible, it's a service
12. 3:28that brings you the sensation that your house is not going to fall.
13. 3:32So this is the same idea, but with a bigger house, which is the planet.
14. 3:43I couldn't see any way to make money from it,
15. 3:48but my dream's always been to preserve the forest.
16. 4:20If, one day, a tree becomes extinct, people can turn to these kinds of places,
17. 4:25and they can say: 'There's the sapling, there's the seed.'
18. 4:28This is the only way to stop it getting wiped out for good.