 How many of you have heard that money doesn't grow on trees? How many of you have heard that? All right, most of us. Well, what if it did? Have successfully monetized the destruction of Mother Earth? What if we were to reverse that and monetize the creation of healthy ecosystems? The world needs more trees. Demand for lumber is set to quadruple by 2050. Climate change coupled with deforestation is putting so much pressure on our forests that 30% of tree species are at risk of extinction. That includes trees that you know and love like cedar, ash, birch, redwood. The problem is trees take a long time to grow. So if you think of a cedar, for example, that takes 40 years to mature. We're simply not growing trees fast enough to keep up with demand. We have a solution. The Empress Blender is a super fast growing hardwood tree. So this here, this is a six month old tree. As you can see, it has huge heart shaped leaves. These are 18 month old Empress Blender trees. They are already over 20 feet tall. The Empress reaches maturity in just 10 years. Those huge leaves are carbon crunching machines equestering massive amounts of CO2. But not only that, the leaves absorb nitrogen and provide rich organic matter to the soil. The flowers of the tree are high in nectar and support pollinators. And perhaps the most amazing property of all, when you cut an Empress tree down, it will regenerate without replanting. This means in the time it takes to grow one generation of cedar, you can grow three to four harvest of Empress trees. Now, I know what you're thinking. This sounds a little bit too good to be true. Is it some kind of bionic tree, some kind of invader of the worst kind? And if you're thinking that, you would be wrong. Mother Nature created this tree and she created nine species, most of which are totally benign. World Tree, we grow only non-invasive varieties. They're not genetically modified. However, they are really hard to grow. World Tree has been doing eight years of research, learning the best varieties to grow in each of our growing regions and the best ways to grow them. One of the things we've discovered is Empress trees are really responsive to regenerative agriculture. You can plant them with cover crops and food crops. You can even integrate your livestock amongst the Empress trees. The Empress produces a beautiful, sustainable hardwood lumber that we call the aluminum of lumber because it's light yet strong, it's water resistant, it's warp resistant and it's highly versatile. You can use it for furniture, cabinets, sailboats, beehives, tiny homes, a wide variety of applications and it's an excellent replacement for those at-risk species such as cedar and ash and birch. We've created a program that we call the Eco Tree program that's designed to unite impact investors with farmers in growing Empress trees. And our model is actually really simple. So World Tree, we provide trees and training and support. Our farmers, they grow the trees and the whole thing is financed by our investors. We grow the trees and in 10 years, we harvest them and share the profits from the lumber. Thanks to the Eco Tree program, we have planted 300 farms across United States, Costa Rica, Mexico and Guatemala, creating about $240 million of assets. And this picture here, this is actually taken in Alabama. It's our U.S. farm team. In the sign in the front, it shows the trees when they were planted in 2020. The trees behind them are just three years old on the same farm. One of our best growing regions is Costa Rica. The trees here are enormous. The trees you can see in this video are just two years old. And this region of Costa Rica called Limón is one of the world's biodiversity hotspots home to a wide variety of animals, birds and insects. However, only 13% of this region is under conservation. It's also a region where there is a lot of poverty, low wages and poor job prospects. For this reason, we've chosen Limón for our first large-scale institutional project. Partnering with Earth University and RRG nature-based solutions, we've created and designed a truly amazing 3,000-acre project that we call Lacobanya. Starting with degraded land, we're planting empress trees with food crops to generate three layers of revenue, food, carbon credits and sustainable lumber. And in parallel, we're generating multiple levels of impact. The project is designed to restore and enhance biodiversity while drawing down carbon and generating profits. And this project will create 80 jobs in the local community, training farmers in regenerative agriculture and giving smallholder farmers land where they can plant and grow their own food crops. We change the world when we change the way we farm. Climate, community, carbon, biodiversity, profitability, these are all a product of how we manage and relate to our agricultural landscapes. World Tree is proud to be part of the regenerative movement and we know we cannot do this alone. It takes capital, it takes commitment and it takes action. I know that's why we're all here. This conference is about urgency, it's about connection and making things happen at the speed of trust. So I invite you all, let's get growing.