Your idea's name (maximum 50 characters):
Represent the Indigenous and Protect Rainforests
What one sentence best describes your idea? (maximum 150 characters)
Protecting the Amazon Rainforest by hiring lawyers to represent the Indigenous people, securing the land they have lived on for thousands of years.
Describe your idea in more depth. (maximum 300 words)
We can protect the Amazon Rainforest by representing the Indigenous people with lawyers. Because Indigenous people have lived in the Amazon Rainforest for thousands of years, they have a right to the land that goes above the right of logging companies to buy the land from the government and destroy the ecosystem. The reason rights of the Indigenous are often ignored is because they have no representation in the system. With lawyers, we could guarantee their right to live on the land they have inhabited for thousands of years. By doing this we would also protect the ecosystems that share the same land with the Indigenous people, thereby protecting the Amazon Rainforest from deforestation.
What problem or issue does your idea address? (maximum 150 words)
Rainforests are being destroyed because the value of rainforest land is perceived as only the value of its timber. By creating a new source of income harvesting the medicinal plants and other sustainable resources, the rainforests could be more valuable alive than cut and burned. We are still discovering medicines from plants in the rainforest that may hold the future cures of disease.
The Amazon Rainforest has been described as the "Lungs of our Planet" because it provides the essential environmental world service of continuously recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen, curbing the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. More than 20 percent of the world's oxygen is produced in the rainforest.
The environmental and medical value of the Amazon Rainforest is worth more than the short term economic benefit of logging. It is valuable to humans in many ways, and we must act to protect the land.
If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how? (maximum 150 words)
If the idea became a reality, everybody in the world would benefit because protecting the Amazon Rainforest helps curb the greenhouse effect and global warming. The people who are treated with medicine derived from the plants and are cured would benefit. But perhaps who would benefit the most would be the Indigenous people and the animals who live in the Amazon Rainforest, because their home would be protected.
What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground? (maximum 150 words)
The initial steps would be identifying possible organizations to partner with on developing the project, and finding whether there could be some teamwork, possibly working with the Brazilian government, the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, Geneva Environment Network, Rainforest Action Network, the International Environment House, and other organizations.
It would be easy to initiate the project with an environmental law firm, but for long term sustainability of the protected acres, it would be advisable to work with the US and Brazilian governments in creating economic incentives to keep the land protected, by making the pharmaceutical companies pay wealthy royalties to the Brazilian government for medicines synthesized from rainforest plants. Some of the funding from Google would be used for non-profit lobbying of the US Congress and Senate.
Describe the optimal outcome should your idea be selected and successfully implemented. How would you measure it?
The optimal outcome would be that more of the Amazon Rainforest would be much better protected from deforestation, and it could be measured directly with the acres secured. With good lawyers, the Indigenous people would be winning back their land in court. After the land has been secured and protected from logging initially, we would work to create long term protection by creating economic incentives for the Brazilian government to keep protecting the land, in the form of wealthy royalties paid by pharmaceutical companies who have developed medicines synthesized from rainforest plants. We would see successful lobbying efforts of the US Congress and Senate to create legislation supporting the economic incentives and working with the Brazilian government to make the protection permanent.
