It?s OK providing a quick fix to a problem, but if we want solutions to work in the long term, we need to look at what?s causing the destruction in the first place.!

Paying a cattle farmer not to cut down an area of forest one day will not stop him from going somewhere else and cutting down another patch of forest the next day. !

We need to find ways of allowing the people who live in the forests to make use of their land without having the need to clear vast areas and produce crops or cattle on a large scale.! The message should be about quality, not quantity and we should be prepared to pay a premium for goods which have been sourced from farms in the forest where sustainability is seen as the priority.

Throwing money at the problem is not the answer, or at least, it hasn?t been so far.! Much of the funding given to rainforested countries in the past has ended up in the pockets of political elites, but if we can find a way to ensure that the money reaches the people who actually live in the forest - who have the power and the ability to protect them for the future – then schemes like REDD could be a way forward.