Johan Eliasch was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1962. He is one of Europe’s most successful businessmen. In addition to his duties at Head, he is also chairman of Equity Partners, Aman Resorts, and London Films. He is an advisory board member of Brasilinvest, Societe du Louvre, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Capstar, Foundation for Renewable Energy and Environment, Centre for Social Justice and the British Olympic Association. He is a member of the Mayors of London’s, Jerusalem, and Rome’s International Business Advisory Councils. He is the first President of the Global Strategy Forum, a trustee of the Kew Foundation and a patron of Stockholm University. All of these various business roles have earned Johan a personal net worth conservatively estimated at $600 million dollars. Oh, and he is also a former politician. He served in a variety of roles for Britain’s Conservative Party between 1999 and 2007. He was the Special Representative of Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Deforestation and Clean Energy from 2007 to 2010. In other words, Johan Eliasch, multi-millionaire, is a busy man. However, he has not let his success skew his priorities. He founded the charity Cool Earth in 2006 to work with local communities to protect forests around the world. The joint UK-US charity works with indigenous communities in Peru, Ecuador, the DR Congo and Papua New Guinea to put local people back in control of the forest in order to save the rainforest. Eliasch co-chairs this charity that has more than 120,000 members. But this wasn’t his first act of rainforest preservation. Saving the rainforest is a concept that has been around since the 1970s but hasn’t seen much advancement. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, half of the rainforest has been destroyed. It no longer exists. Rainforests are a critical freshwater generator – producing a fifth of the world’s freshwater. They are a critical oxygen generator—making it possible for us to breathe the air we exist in. Just one acre of rainforest produces 76,000 tons of water each year. The rainforest also contains more than six million species, 99% of which are still being studied. It covers six percent of the earth’s surface. And yet, every year 25 million acres of rainforest are destroyed. That represents an area the size of Iceland. Eliasch quickly realized that the people who depend on the rainforest for sustenance are its best protectors. This was when he launched Cool Earth. His aim with this project was to offer an alternative to the quick cash logging companies offered communities. Cool Earth sets out to make sure that the communities who have the most to lose from deforestation, gain the most from its protection. Cool Earth has built health care clinics, schools, fish farms, and co-operatives that have enhanced the lives and livelihoods of rainforest communities.
Cool Earth had an initial target of saving 4,500 acres of rainforest. As of today, Cool Earth and its community partners have saved over 410,000 acres of the forest. That’s more than 98 million trees saved and more than 106 million tons of Co2 stored. Saving the rainforest is not only good for the communities that live in and around them, it is good for the entire planet. The result of so many acres protected from deforestation has created a long shield that makes a further 3.4 million acres totally inaccessible to the loggers who seek to cut down the forest.
