 So many people have been speaking about the climate crisis, but the real question is why is it that we're still not acting at the scale and speed that is necessary? For 150 years we built up a world based on the assumption that we can exploit the planet for free and it translates to very dramatic impacts happening right as we speak. The climate crisis is a threat multiplier, which means it exacerbates existing inequities in our society. We need to remember we're on the same planet and this is the planet that we need to make sustainable for the whole of humanity. Making much faster progress toward all 17 sustainable development goals is the best pathway to adjust the future for all and public-private partnerships will be absolutely crucial to this transition. We know that this transition will require a fast adoption of a lot of new technologies and the question today is how to find the appropriate way to find this technology. Younger generations are demanding a sense of purpose, they want to look at companies and say I am investing with you all for this reason. The solutions are there. What we need is governments to regulate, to invest and we need business to act with values. History will look at us, people, politicians, corporate leaders. These times require not only solutions but speed. There is nowhere else to look than the mirror. We are the ones that need to do this. Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Sam Jacobs. I'm the editor-in-chief of Time and I'm so pleased to be hosting today's conversation, The Future of the Trillion Trees Movement. We have an amazing panel with us here today to discuss that topic. I'll introduce them and then we will kick it off to my right to your left, Tom Crowther, professor at the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich, chair of the advisory board of the UN Decade on Ecosystems Restoration, and a member of 1T.org and its advisory board, Vaishali Sinha, co-founder and chief sustainability officer of Renew. Renew is an energy company and has committed to plant and grow 1 million trees by 2030 as part of its commitments to 1T.org. Marie Claire Graf. Marie Claire is the co-founder of Youth Negotiators Academy, a climate justice advocate, and last but not least, the youngest negotiator of Switzerland to any UN climate negotiations. We also have joining us today Jad Daly, the chief executive officer of American Forest and co-founder of the 1T.org U.S. chapter. I should say before we begin that Times co-owner, co-chair Mark Benioff is a founder and supporter of 1 Trillion Trees and 1 Trillion 1T.org. Tom, let's start with you. Welcome. I know you have some exciting news to share with us, but I'd like to start with a big question for you that hopefully helps center the conversation today. You've done a lot of the important scientific work that undergirds this movement. So a question to begin with you. Are we going to solve the climate crisis by planting 1 Trillion Trees? No. No scientist would ever say we are going to solve the climate crisis by planting trees. But nature is a fundamental part of this climate fight. We can achieve about 30% of our climate goals by restoring and preserving nature on the planet. But also nature is essential for our ability to adapt to climate change as well. So there is no way we're achieving our 1.5 degree targets without nature. But it also won't be achieved by mass tree plantations, right? It's achieved by empowering millions of local communities, farmers, indigenous populations, businesses to find the solutions that make nature the economic choice. When nature is the preferred choice of local people who depend on it, that is when it thrives. And for me that's what a global restoration movement like the Trillion Trees campaign means. What initially brought you to this work? I had no choice. I was always obsessed with nature. As an ecologist I was endlessly looking under rocks for snakes and lizards and insects. As I emerged into my research I realized that the best way for me to conserve and restore and promote that essential life on our planet is to protect the ecosystems that sustain those snakes and lizards and insects. And so this global perspective that we have now is really a holistic one taking into account insights about the biodiversity across our entire planet. And it's only through that global perspective that we see the real massive potential that nature has. Speaking of protecting our ecosystems, by Shali a question for you. What role can the private sector play in forest restoration? That's a great question. I think this whole climate change movement is really about partnerships. I think none of us can do anything alone whether it is academia, whether it is activists or whether it is the government or the private sector. We have to work together to meet the goals. And so as a private sector player, as a leading renewable energy player in India, we generate about 14 gigawatts of clean energy in India. So that's our contribution. But as we go and set up our farms, et cetera, we have a lot of barren land as well. So for many years we have been planting trees and we've been very particular about what we plant and where we plant and do these plantations survive. And a lot of our company members volunteer to do this. And when I was having a conversation with Nicole at one of the Davos sessions, I learned about this program and was really excited about it. Because other than being a private sector player which is committed to maintaining biodiversity in the remotest parts of the country, I do believe as a citizen of India when I land from, let's say, other parts of the world, perhaps UK and other greener pastures, when I come to India I see a brown cover. I'd love to see a green cover one day. And I do believe that from both from a business point of view and an individual responsibility point of view, we need a lot more green to offset the carbon emissions. Of course, that's one way in which we can do it amongst many other ways and initiatives we are working on to ensure that we can decarbonize in different ways. You have an inspiring vision there of a greener India. What would you say the climate is for forest restoration in India today? What is the atmosphere like for that movement there? I think it's early stages for a movement and the fact that various industry associations, private sector players are coming together. So renew is committed to planting one million trees. We have, I believe, a couple of new members who've just joined and we see new members coming in. So there is commitment from the private sector. Plantation and forest is a state subject in India. And so the biggest challenge for good execution would be to engage with the government at the national level, at the sub-national level to be able to come up with policies which make it easy for the private sector to work with the communities for better and more apt plantation across the country. Marie Claire, thank you for being here today. We'll be doing a lot of connecting the forest to the trees here. I'm sorry. How does the vision of one trillion trees connect with the bigger picture of what's happening at the UN where you're very involved? Yeah, and I think you gave me just a fantastic transition into what we're doing. We need the right policies on a local, on a national, as well as on a multilateral level to ensure that we can actually restore, that we can keep the forest but also plant the right new plantations. And what we see that in a lot of places, unfortunately, policies are not yet set for this. It's actually in favor to actually cut down forests for new projects. It's very hard to preserve them, also giving their rights to indigenous and tribal communities living there. So the policies are absolutely crucial for this transformation. And I do inherently believe that we need the right policies to be able to make this transformation happen as we need nature as part of it. So we at the Youth Negotiators Academy truly believe in intergenerational leadership. We believe that we need all generations working together, specifically also on a policy level to have a seat for young people at the table. Unfortunately, in these four hours also, as the United Nations General Assembly happening today, we see a lot of senior, elderly leader, which are very crucial to solving this crisis. But also what we need to see is more young people actually taking the seat. And that's what we are doing. And we do know that this needs a lot of support. We need to educate. We need to support the young people. We need to give them the right community, the right skills, the right understanding and the knowledge. That's exactly what we are doing. So we work with governments and young people together. We empower them to be part of their country delegation. We need to actually have a seat in this multilateral process. As the United Nations is a governmental-driven process, it means that only if you're part of the government, you actually have a decision-making mandate. And that's why we empower young people to be part of these processes, to make their voices heard, where it's actually matters. So young people can take part in deciding on their own future, which very often is very connected to nature, because many young people have their strength, their passion, and their drive coming from experience in nature and seeing how their own front-line communities, how their own forests or other kind of lands are degrading. And that's what we want to bring, kind of more human front-line urgency into the space through empowering young people. Is there a single message you think that spans across your generation if it's so important that young people have a voice? What are they saying with it? Young people want intergenerational leadership. It's not about me against you or against others. We need to work together, but you need to allow us to work together. And what we see very often is that there's a lot of, there is still a big hype around youth leadership, right? Young people in the space here and there. But they often get kicked out as soon as decisions are going to start to happen, right? We want them for the speeches in the beginning, and at the end we want to say how inspiring they are and thank them for reminding us about the urgency, and that's important. But it's no way we're going to make it if they're not part of the decision-making process and if they're not shaping the policies, which ultimately will guide the implementation which we so urgently and desperately need. Thank you. Jed, a question for you from your perspective. Are there better methods out there to ensure that we're not just planting trees, but that we're planting trees that will be there in 20, 30, 50 years' time? Absolutely. I think one of the most exciting breakthroughs, let me just say, I think the most exciting breakthrough in the forest community is what you just heard, that when I co-founded the First Forest Climate Coalition in the United States in 2007, we thought it was a win to get all the forestry organizations together, you know, from the private sector and the public sector alike. And what's happened is, and 1-2.org's been a big catalyst in this, we've made a tent that's big enough for all the different kinds of organizations, from governments to Girl Scouts that want to be involved in this work, and I think that's really what's supercharging our potential. We just have more hands on deck and we have a societal movement now, and that just creates a totally different level of implementation power, political power, and so much more. But we do need to be doing the right work. And so, well, folks like Tom Crowther had been doing a fantastic job of helping us understand what's the potential of forest as a climate solution and what are the things that we need to be doing at that kind of broad level of different forestry activities. The technical details of, for example, what species of trees we plant, with what genetics, and planted in what ways, and managed in what ways in an ongoing basis, can survive in a changing climate, is going to make the difference between whether we succeed or fail in this work. And so I'm really proud that our organization has developed some globally leading approaches to doing this in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and leading universities and powered by corporate partners like Salesforce to design a truly climate resilient and biodiversity-informed planting prescriptions. For example, the entire burned areas across the entire state of California. So we're working at that scale to get these forestry details right so that we can regrow forests that are going to be climate resilient and address our needs for biodiversity. So getting that work in place everywhere is going to be a critical success factor for the trillion trees movement and I think we now have the proof of concept of what it looks like to make that happen. We've talked about an intergenerational approach. We've talked about working across from nature to climate, private industry, the science community. I'm curious from the U.S. perspective, are there examples you're seeing of what's working outside the United States that you want to bring into your practices here, and are there examples that you're able to send out to other parts of the world that you think will help other places? Absolutely. Well, I think, again, that's been one of the strengths of 1T.org is that we now have a global community of practice. So we've had great discussions, for example, with our friends in the China chapter and some of the partnerships that they've created around the Ant Forest, which has been a really creative way to integrate all sorts of different actors within China to collaborate on one of the largest reforestation efforts in the world. And we certainly have seen some scientific breakthroughs in the kinds of areas that I was just describing in terms of how to think about climate resilient forestry, how to prepare forest soils so that they'll help foster faster forest regeneration and some of those best ideas we're taking from the European Union and other parts of the world. There absolutely is, I think, a great exchange of ideas and innovation that's happening across boundaries. And again, as I said, I think the work that's happening here in the United States is globally leading thanks to the incredible expertise that we have at the U.S. Forest Service and their commitment to be a global leader in forest climate science. The fact that we do have all these different parts of American society investing, corporates investing alongside governments in this work, for example, to get it right and thanks to the $20 billion of investment that we have in forest climate solutions through the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law, we now have the funds to implement these solutions and refine these approaches to scale never before attempted on Earth. So just as one component of this Reforestation effort I was describing, there was a provision as part of that that gives the U.S. Forest Service enough funding to fully reforest all of the burned and damaged areas on the U.S. National Forest System, over 4 million acres of land. And we're turning that into a learning lab for how to apply this climate and biodiversity informed reforestation approach and we're really hopeful that we can make that a model for the world so that public lands can lead the way on climate informed and biodiversity informed reforestation and how governments can invest alongside other actors to get those solutions to scale. Great. A question about the science here for Tom, but I also invite you all to weigh in if there are pieces of what he says or what other panelists say that you want to react to. Tom, you published a paper in 2019 in Science that really accelerated the conversation that we're having here today. I'll update to that paper covering soon. I understand that maybe there's data in the paper that you can't discuss, but I would love if you could give the panelists and those watching at home or wherever they are a sense of what can we expect from this paper. How is it going to change how people think about this conversation today? And if you can look forward, if you could hope, what is the impact that you hope that it will have? Yeah, like you say, in 2019 that paper just exploded the environmental movement. Nature's always been a part of the climate conversation, but it was never a centerpiece at COP or WEF, or in the climate conversation nature has always been absent. In 2019 it exploded into the world with this research showing that restoration of nature can contribute 30% of our climate goals. And that was wonderful. It led to the Trillion Trees movement, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, it was present in all the COPs, but at the same time it came with massive-scale greenwashing. Loads of people saw it as an excuse, an easy way out, plant a few trees and ignore the dangers of emissions cuts and ignore the real fight in promoting biodiversity and human well-being that depend on it. And so that controversy really built a really toxic environment in the scientific community. Like I say, there was controversy that really undermined the entire movement. And at the same time NGOs and organizations were sort of concerned by this calling for an end-to-nature-based solutions because of the concern that comes with this devastating threat of greenwashing. Now what this new paper is, is a chance to go again, it's a second chance. And this has been born out of the scientific community's concern about this controversy. Scientists all across the planet have come together over the last four years to build the most comprehensive consensus evaluation of this forest restoration potential to show the massive scale of what's possible, but that it's not only achieved by vast plantations, it's in fact achieved by conserving the ecosystems that we still have and by reconnecting fragmented landscapes and that we don't achieve even a fraction of that potential if it was monocultures of single species. That can only be achieved by healthy, diverse, resilient systems that can be sustained in the long term. So what we're really hoping is that this second chance to revitalize the conversation can really move the, essentially it can be an opportunity to redefine restoration, to move the conversation away for monocultures of trees for carbon and towards local biodiversity for the people who depend on it. And if we can reframe the global restoration movement in terms of the needs of those millions of people who are revitalizing biodiversity, then we destroy greenwashing, we destroy the threat of mass plantations and we empower millions of people and sort of enable the redistribution of wealth that can support sort of sustainable and evolving economies that are based around the promotion of nature rather than the destruction of it and then nature can really contribute to our climate goals. Is there a new science that's going to help us understand that? Without getting into the details, can you give us a framework to think about it? So yeah, first and foremost, it's going to show that the scientific community has built consensus. We are aligned about the fundamental role of nature in the climate conversation. This 30% contribution is a very meaningful target and it again reiterates that fact that we will not be achieving our climate goals without nature. Now one of the key ways it's restructuring our understanding and I can't go into too many details as you mentioned, but it's really highlighting the prominent role of conservation of forests in terms of carbon drawdown. We've always thought about avoiding emissions means conserving what's there and carbon drawdown means restoring more forests, but actually the average forest on our planet is 30% of its natural maturity. They're degraded secondary growth forests that are much smaller than their natural capacity. If we can preserve and protect the ecosystems that we still have, there is enormous potential for carbon capture and drawdown as well as the avoided emissions that come with avoiding deforestation. Avoiding deforestation is a central part in our global restoration movement. One of the issues that Tom addressed there is greenwashing. A question for you, Vaishali, from the perspective of the private sector. Greenwashing has its own twin we know as green hushing, right? And you're here today to talk about what your company is achieving. A lot of other companies are struggling to participate in that conversation. We see many businesses that are taking climate action but are hesitating to discuss their work. Do you encounter that challenge internally at Renew? And what do you tell your colleagues if you do? And when you work with partners across the private sector, how can you encourage them to step forward and participate in this conversation? Yeah, that's a great question. And we're a little different at Renew because we are a green sort of end to a journey for many. We help companies like Amazon and Microsoft green their supply chains. We green data centers. And so greening is a part of our job and what we do. And we do believe we're about 11, 12 years old. And since the beginning we've been investing in the communities because we work in the remotest parts of the country. So as you'd mentioned, when we started planting trees which is about a decade ago, we were great believers but very quickly we figured that it wasn't working because when we went back and visited the areas where we planted trees and we were actually gifting a tree to each employee as a birthday gift and it was mentioned and so on and so forth. We were getting a certificate and everything but it wasn't working. So because when we went back there was nothing really there, nothing survived in Rajasthan in certain parts. So I think the work we are doing along with the 1T.org group is really to focus on ways in which we can come up with standard processes to be able to measure and report and engage so that it's a soft area and you really need frameworks for people to find it credible. And I think that's really a very important part of what one has to do and whether it is working with perhaps various organizations which exist whether it is SBTI or CDP or WBCSD, 1T.org, of course we all... The whole else of that. Yeah, every all the acronyms but really 1T.org in particular we're trying to come up with the ways in which we can make this more scientific because I think then you'll have more I guess allies in this journey. But nature-based solutions broadly speaking I'd like to say have become an area of great interest as various companies look at their decarbonization strategies. So the demand is there and we just need to make sure that we can need in the supply and what goes into it. And once that is done I think there's a huge amount of potential to share value because I think this is one area which I have seen over the last decade that you can actually engage communities to share value whether it's mangroves, whether it is plantation in different areas where you can engage the people of the local communities because they really know more than us in this area and if we don't engage them we're going to be doing a big disservice to this whole movement. So I think the ability to do that really excites me. The ability to be able to engage these communities I think we can do with a lot more R&D and a lot of the work you're doing and as you say what you say some of it goes over my head but I'd like for it to go straight into my heart so that I can take action. And so a lot of storytelling around this and sharing of ways in which we can do better through measurement and reporting will really help accelerate engagement and participation in this movement. Do you worry about green hushing? Is that something that you feel like is a concern today? Yes I am. I'm very concerned about it because I see it happening all the time and I think it's important for us to try and do our bit and call out. I try and do it every now and then but whether it's financial institutions whether it is various discussions which we've had over the last couple of days I think money is recycling in certain areas and we really need to make sure that we can get it out of there and direct it to innovation in areas which are actually going to address the critical problems we're all facing. So we need to be mindful of social licensing and various other activities which will perhaps help us to do better as we push these initiatives out there and get more partners involved. I think one of the themes that I'm hearing from both of the last two remarks is a focus on trust. How do we build trust? And Marie Claire, you're an active campaigner across a variety of issues. In your mind what role can communications play, can campaigning play when it comes to building trust within this movement? I think it's very important that we bring more of these allies as you mentioned before together because we have been seeing them acting in silos and very often unfortunately have even been competing not only for the funding but also for the implementation and we just don't have time for this. Honestly, it's too late to fight each other if we all work towards the same goal. And in our case we work specifically on the trust between generations in decision-making spaces which are very divided, very contested. The whole political world is kind of coming together if it's the COP, the climate COP or other COP and we see a huge mistrust between in the space and all these leaders being there together negotiating but also outside. And I think what is crucial and really vital is that we bring the people from the front lines into these spaces because it's also about the storytelling. It's about bringing these stories into the decision-making to inform the decision-making, to make the decision-making better to actually bring out policies which then are in line that the front-line communities can preserve the forest and restore the forest that they can engage in these activities. So trust is absolutely crucial yet we do see a huge lack of trust between different partners still and I do believe that if we empower more young people with the right mindset we have to do it right as with also reforestation and restoration we have to do it the right way. I do believe that we can restore trust within the space but also outside the space and make multilateral processes again what they were once meant to be when the world came together after devastating wars between nations and now we have a devastating war going against nature and I kind of bring the world together as humanity and not as states which compete with each other but bring the world together as humanity to solve these critical issues and it's not only climate it's also the biodiversity, it's desertification, it's many interlinked connections and that's why it's also important for us to work with other conventions together with other multilateral processes not only on climate but also how can we empower more people to actually have interest in desertification related matters. There's a whole convention no one talks about, about desertification which is absolutely crucial to solve the climate problem yet we kind of shy away from it. There is one on biodiversity, there are many others which are absolutely important so kind of building the trust between these different forests, these different silos bringing the people together, train them, make them understand and also build very conscious communities because ultimately it's not only what we know but also who we know and unfortunately we are still kind of in our small bubbles and we have to penetrate them as you mentioned there have been great examples especially on the local level and we bring this now to the global level I just wanted to highlight that in the 1T.org there's also a youth hub, the restoration generation youth hub which is absolutely crucial and there are like hundreds of leaders from all around the world coming together from various different backgrounds and I think this is a really beautiful example on how we are advancing trust on a multitude of levels. Do you have a theory about why we're shying away from those other conventions that you mentioned? Good question, so like in this space it's called like the climate is kind of the big brother or the big sister as I would call it and the others are like kind of just there one is because we have to talk about implementation we cannot talk about the certification about land rights if you're not talking about implementation and sometimes climates get like very kind of multi kind of very like meta level discussions right? Yeah And we shy away from the on-ground like the land right where we actually do the implementation if we talk about restoration, if we talk about land rights we have to go to this very like to the local people and I think that's one of the reasons why we have been shying away from it but also because we haven't put as much scientific efforts into many of these thematics because they're also like very complex to tackle it's not only a scientific issue but it's because a lot about you know land rights women rights, equality, indigenous peoples rights and I think that's where we kind of really have to open up and as you mentioned not only go with the mind but also go with the heart and bring the good leadership in us towards the partnerships we are building now Jed, one of the points that Marie Claire made was about storytelling You're in the storytelling business you write for time among other publications you're trying to articulate a vision that can move people, that's storytelling I'm curious what sort of communication challenges you're encountering as you try to continue to build allies to prioritize this movement Yeah, I wish we could clear the whole afternoon and spend a whole lot of time talking about that that's such an important question and I mean I'll just quickly note barriers include the fact this is complicated I mean I attempted to explain climate informed and biodiversity informed reforestation and you know two and a half minutes and it's complicated all these factors of tree species and genetics and how they're planted there's a lot of complexity there and so in many cases we need to engage with the audiences that need to trust that we have those kinds of details in hand when we don't always have enough time to really walk them through and give them all the information they might need to have full confidence and so I just want to say the complexity of this issue is definitely one of the challenges and I do think also that it can be easy to see this work as pitted against other climate solutions when we are also resolute and Tom started us there this is one piece of the climate puzzle it's just one piece and it always feels really important to start there because for some reason when people hear you say solution they tend to think you mean the whole solution and so there's a kind of a language issue there I think that gets to trust issues with folks who, especially young people who are going to be living with this climate for longer than certainly folks like me to know that we really do see the whole puzzle and we're all in for the full complexity of solutions that we need to deliver but my last thought which actually interestingly touches on almost everything that my co-panelist just said is the hopeful story that when we created the term tree equity in the United States a number of years ago to try to capture in two words a searing reality in this country that a map of trees is a map of income and it's a map of race and ways to transcend income and that's literally killing people in our country because of the ways in which that leads to increase air pollution in your neighborhood and so by just creating a term such a critical role in rallying all the different folks working on urban forestry around this focused way of thinking what is it that we need to accomplish with trees and cities we don't just need more trees and cities we need to remedy that tree and equity turn it into tree equity neighborhoods and we can literally save lives and so much more with doing that work and talk about the power of data and equity score which a map is worth a picture is worth a thousand words and a map is worth a million we mapped every urban neighborhood in America using a standardized approach to show where we have trees and where we're lacking trees and then to correlate that with who's living there by income, race, age, health status and then to show how much hotter each neighborhood is that lacks trees and giving that information to everyone from local leaders to the White House is what has led to this movement cresting and we had really proud to say 1.5 billion dollars in the Inflation Reduction Act for grants to cities front line organizations youth organizations to now go out and do the work of planting and caring for and protecting trees and our cities with the focus goal of tree equity and so in some ways the story you're telling is not one just about nature but about justice that's what I hear there that's a critical dimension I think because you're absolutely right and Tom said this earlier that folks tend to focus on one of the outcomes that we're producing but tree equity in cities is equal parts climate action and climate justice it's also economic opportunity and it's so much more and so I think by helping people see that with one intervention we can address multiple societal needs and really importantly including economic opportunity 25.7 jobs for every million dollars to invest in the work of urban forestry I think people in those neighborhoods had the trust to believe that this is actually an intervention that could address multiple things that are challenges that folks are facing in these very neighborhoods that are systemically underserved in trees and therefore facing greater environmental burdens and threats from climate change a map is worth a million words inside of that is this idea about how we measure the impact that we're having and and vice-challie to you one of the challenges for companies on these issues relates to accountability and measurement you feel like we're making progress there and how do you think we can best show the impact that the private sector is having yeah that's a good question and you know we've so I think we just have to do what we've got to do I think that means that if we believe in some of these solutions we have to keep working on them with courage and sometimes when you take the first step or you get into areas which are not fully baked you have to be patient and you have to work with other stakeholders who can come up with scientific solutions for research, for measuring metrics, standard processes regulatory sort of regulations to be able to define how things have to be done so you know so the point is that you have to contribute you have to keep planting trees you have to make sure they survive you have to work and build the momentum but at the same time invest on other areas which are required and you know eventually I think we've seen that once there is partnership and there is engagement you know when governments come together with the private sector and civil society you know change happens so as of now there are lots of question marks in this journey and we meet very often in the 1T.org platform to find solutions on all fronts you know whether it is policy whether it's engagement whether it's engaging the local communities and the legal issues which we need to solve for to find solutions in a country like India which may be different from what you have in the United States in other parts of the world so have these local movements and I think you know and engage communities because at the end of the day I believe that all of the nature based solution issues the one real big win is and what I see on the ground is really engaging the communities and sharing value with them because the most vulnerable as we say need to be included and this is an area where we are being able to create jobs and you know and contribute trillions to the economy perhaps so it's I'm not sure if I answered your question but just repeat your question once again. Yeah I'm curious about measuring impact. Measuring yeah so no it's coming everybody's focused on it as I said when we discuss this issue we do believe that we have to follow scientific methodologies and come up with solutions and I think when regulations come in place and get you know tightened right now for example in India in the budget we announced a couple of initiatives so now once they're announced we will have the regulators come and define frameworks so all I'm saying is that as we pull these initiatives through with the commitment and courage to do the right thing because we think it's the right thing for the environment you know the other issues will follow and we just have to be patient and keep partnering to ensure that they happen through discussions and perhaps implementing the policies and working with the government I think is very critical in India working on legislation is very important in India and once we have to disclose all listed companies are very particular and so we'll ask for a lot of these programs to be measured as well so we're seeing some work in India but perhaps we can do with a lot more as far as measurement metrics etc is concerned Go ahead, I was just going to add from the scientific community we've got an overwhelming burgeoning amount of metrics and data and measurements I feel like we've got a big job on our hands to you guys who can then use it to validate and evaluate and grow sustainable projects right? There's a big translational conversation to have taking all that wealth of scientific knowledge and getting the best out of it. So that is the point which we just discussed earlier that I think a lot of what you're doing is super valuable but how can we translate it into simple easy to understand and executable methodologies and perhaps platforms like this can bring us together to be able to do that. Tom, I want to follow with a version of that question. So much of this conversation has been about building coalitions and moving outside of your sector outside of your silo to effect change. You're a scientist who frequently ventures outside of the lab and interacts with people from other walks of life from partners that are on this panel. Are there lessons that you've learned from the scientific community about how to communicate differently, how to be more effective? Are there ways in which your interactions with your partners here have made you a better scientist or taught you lessons about where the scientific community needs to go? Absolutely. The more you collaborate outside of your bubble, the stronger your network and perspective gets. But I think the one lesson that has really come through for me is that it's the stories of the people on the ground. They cut through the noise of our conversation. There's people in the political sphere and in the western world saying nature's important for climate. No, nature's a distraction from climate. There's controversies and different perspectives. But when you cut through all of that and you speak to people who live in association with nature, that fades away immediately. I'll give an example. We've got a network of 150,000 local indigenous and local communities and local farmers on a platform called Restore. It's a network of thousands of projects that's this growing bottom up movement. Examples of those people, they have stories that will silence the entire conversation because they are about the survival of people. I met a guy called Laitoro two weeks ago. He's from Kenya and his tribe was really suffering from increasing periods of drought. Every year climate change is making life harder for those people and what he's been doing is conserving what they call water holes, but it's actually patches of trees in the nearby region that were otherwise being lost and he's restoring the native diversity of species that are there. In protecting those little patches those patches of forests trap water and nutrients in the soil now their cattle can graze. They also get all of their medicines from those water holes and so now with sustainable cattle production they can continue to survive there and as a result of that 18 other communities across their landscape have all started actively protecting individual trees and restoring diversity in those little water hole patches and when you hear someone saying I need nature to survive in fact my entire landscape of people needs nature to survive that cuts through all of the noise and it becomes crystal clear that we fundamentally depend on nature and so for me it's all about telling the stories from the ground those are the those are the stories that make this movement work. I could just come in I was also interestingly in Serengeti recently and just this whole thing about the calm balance which exists in some of these parts of the world it's quite amazing and very inspirational to learn sometimes from the wildlife there and the local communities there who are living I guess in the most ancient way but most effectively and most in sync with nature. I think it's just I just hope that we can maintain this on the ground and but at the same time leverage some of the new technologies like you know from the fourth industrial revolution to be able to map without being needing to travel here and there be able to figure out what are the species which will survive and so using the fourth industrial revolution solutions to find ways to maintain nature and the natural balance on the ground if we can do that I think it'll just show that you know we are where we are in the time which is now which is the which is 2023 and to be able to use technology to maintain the ecosystem in a very natural way so there's actually a really exciting movement around this with Angel Cold Gain Forest who is mapping with drones and also using satellite imagery but then also verifying it on ground and working with the local people and actually paying them because very often you know the data of local people is just used there is no value as you mentioned created I think it's very important to engage them as part of the solution but also using then the drone images and actually also like teaching them about this fourth industrial revolution and all the technologies which is currently available to make the data even more proof and sound but also giving them the relevance because if you just show them like image trees and maps of trees they are like okay how does this matter to me right but if they then actually verify the species it's actually creating values for them specifically in the communities monitoring as well perhaps Yeah I was just going to say what's interesting get back to your question about what are some of the communication challenges or barriers and I think that one of the challenges has been for a long time people have been hearing about nature particularly in the United States I should say I've been hearing about nature based solutions in the context of the kind of incredible stories that Tom just told and other stories you know from developing countries and particularly you know tropical rainforest and other kind of other types of landscapes and ecosystems that have taken on a certain iconic role in how people think about nature based solutions I think one of the reasons why the triacody movement has gained so much steam so quickly in the United States is that these are life or death nature based solutions issues right here in our own cities in some cases right on their side of town and people didn't even know never even thought hey my my fellow citizen here in my city could be living in a home that's a neighborhood that's 20 degrees fahrenheit hotter than where I am right now and by the way living there without air conditioning and with pre-existing health conditions and so you know we spent if we can make this all feel more real and immediate we need to know the story all around the world but I think make sure that we're telling the stories in the most immediate ways possible for people so we understand we are all in this truly together we have that kind of urgency in every country on earth opportunities to deliver real solutions you know with nature right now and so I think it comes down to awareness awareness becomes inspiration and inspiration becomes action and that has to be societal it just ultimately for us to get to the scale of change that we need we need a societal movement and and that comes with societal awareness and engagement and buy-in I think that's a wonderful note for us to end on a terrific panel on the future of the trillion trees movement thank you so much for joining us thank you