Who Is Responsible?

In conversation with Jungwon Kim of the Rainforest Alliance 

In our hyper digitized and urban lives, nature can sometimes seem like a separate entity. We often forget we’re intrinsically linked to our environment—that we are part of nature. Jungwon Kim of the Rainforest Alliance wants to remind us of that connectivity. She wants to transform the relationship between people and nature to make it more harmonious. Through the Rainforest Alliance, she works with global teams to make responsible business the “new normal,” and to change our collective culture of consumption. We sat down with Jungwon Kim to discuss how the Rainforest Alliance supports Indigenous environmental stewardship, why collective action is important, and what systemic changes need to happen at scale to make a real and lasting impact on the climate crisis.

Riposte: What is driving rainforest destruction?

Jungwon Kim: Conventional agriculture drives 80% of tropical deforestation. It also consumes 69% of the world’s entire freshwater supply. Given that our population is expected to grow from 7.7 billion today to 9.7 billion by 2050, the survival prospects of the next generation depends on our success in changing everything about the way we produce food.

At the Rainforest Alliance we work at the intersection of forests, agriculture, and business to make global supply chains more sustainable and ethical. Our approach is holistic and includes: providing sustainable agriculture training to farmers, collaborating with Indigenous and forest communities to build thriving rural economies that protect natural resources, and working with businesses seeking to eliminate deforestation and human exploitation from their supply chains.

R Where are we currently at in terms of the health of the Amazon and what are the consequences of further deforestation?

JK We are in the early stages of a global climate crisis that is already acute in many parts of the world, as evinced by extreme temperatures, disasters, fires, massive water shortages, famine, and political instability. Most of the world’s rainforests are under extreme threat—but scientists say the Amazon is dangerously close to a tipping point of ecological collapse, after which it would degrade into a savannah. That would mean losing its unparalleled function as “rainmaker” for much of the continent as well as its carbon-absorbing capacity, with dire consequences for the rest of the planet.

R How can individual action make an impact? 

JK Some critics have recently dismissed the impact we can make as individuals. But they are missing the point. History has shown repeatedly, as any student of Howard Zinn understands, that when individuals unite for a common cause, their collective actions become a powerful force for change. The US Civil Rights Movement provides many examples of effective collective actions comprised of individual actions: the Montgomery Bus Boycott was 40,000 individuals making daily sacrifices for more than a year, and it led to the desegregation of the city’s bus system.

Indigenous land stewardship also provides rich examples of individual impact multiplied across communities. 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity is maintained by Indigenous people, who manage 11% of the world’s forests. And although Indigenous people make up just 5% of the global population, they hold deep reserves of traditional ecological knowledge and expertise on best land-management practices that are passed across generations by individuals. Climate scientists are only beginning to tap into this body of knowledge in order to better understand our climate crisis.

In the face of our rapidly worsening climate crisis, I believe it’s imperative for everybody to go all-out. Leaders at the 2019 UN Climate Change Summit came up with very little in the way of bold action. That was tremendously disappointing, but clarifying as well. Now we know it’s up to us to demand new, sustainable, and even regenerative systems—and to back up that demand by changing our own consumption habits (choosing responsibly made products and making noise about it). We’ve got to ignite a dramatic and widespread culture change among consumers and business.

R How can activism evolve to make the most impact? 

JK What makes activism so rich and beautiful it that takes so many forms. Marching in the streets sends a signal to leaders, but we have seen in recent years that many of them aren’t willing to receive the signal. 

I still believe in the power of public demonstration—if only to anchor ourselves in a community of change—but I also believe it’s crucial to be active in other ways. When it comes to deforestation and human rights abuses, businesses are as important as governments, if not more so; a single decision on one product by a huge company can change the way millions of hectares of land are used or how hundreds of thousands of workers are treated. As consumers, we can influence the brands we support by contacting them directly and also tagging them on social media. Companies monitor their social media engagement, and if they see a large number of consumers speaking to them on a particular issue, they will take note.

R What changes do you think need to happen on a systemic, industrial level?

JK Many core philosophies and practices in today’s global supply chain and financial markets originated with colonialism and slavery and prioritize constant profit growth and scale at the expense of human rights and ecosystem health. As a pragmatist, I don’t predict a near-term collapse of the global economy, so working from within this system, our immediate focus must be to assign proper valuation to ecosystems and human rights. Healthy ecosystems and a strong human rights framework are inextricably connected to each other AND to our collective climate future—because sustainable agriculture and forestry cannot be practiced by communities in the throes of economic desperation. 

R Is it ever ethical and feasible for companies to scale sustainably?

JK One of our company partners, Patagonia, has been extra-ordinarily successful in creating a more sustainable model of production and scaling slowly and carefully—but it is still a relatively small company compared to most multinational corporations. Ultimately, I don’t know how compatible our global commodity model is with sustainable scaling at the level of the world’s corporate giants. 

R What are some positive examples of change at scale that you’ve seen in action? 

JK Sustainability certification can be a terrific tool for widespread, incremental change at scale because it harnesses market forces to incentivise good farming, forestry, and labour practices. My big caveat is that certification on its own is not a “guarantee” of sustainability; imagine a lone auditor in a remote region travelling hundreds of kilometres to visit a farm and looking for “evidence” of child labour, and you’ll understand why business and government must also do their part. These efforts are greatly enhanced by government support—both on the funding side and on the policy side. For example, until recently, a colonial-era law on the books in Ghana encouraged farmers to chop down shade trees on their cocoa farms because it gave the government the right to take any tree needed for timber. Once this law was finally eliminated, cocoa farming cooperatives from 36 communities in the Juaboso-Bia region launched a tree-planting initiative that achieved remarkable results—including the revival of a river that had gone dry. 

These are the stories that keep me going, no matter how scary our global climate outlook! I have seen first-hand how much a community of determined individuals can accomplish on their own.

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