Kinari Webb: 0:00

and you know what they were right. 10 years later, there was a 90% drop in logging households. There was a stabilization of the loss of the primary forest and 52,000 acres, 21,000 hectors of logged forest grew back and across the board improvements in health and 67% drop in infant mortality.

Tom Raftery: 0:22

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening wherever you are in the world. This is the climate 21 podcast. The number one podcast, showcasing best practices and climate emissions reductions. And I'm your host global vice president for SAP, Tom Raftery. Climate 21 is the name of an initiative by SAP to allow our customers calculate report and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. In this climate 21 podcast, I will showcase best practices and thought leadership by SAP, by our customers, by our partners and by our competitors, if they're game in climate emissions. reductions,, Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in your podcast app of choice, to be sure you don't miss any episodes. Hi everyone. Welcome to the climate 21 podcast. My name is Tom Raftery with SAP and with me on the show today, I have my special guest to Kinari. Kinari, would you like to introduce yourself?

Kinari Webb: 1:17

Hi I'm Kinari Webb. I'm a physician and the founder of a nonprofit called Health in Harmony. And, I'm delighted be here today to talk to you about hope.

Tom Raftery: 1:27

Hope. I love it. And Kinari congratulations. You are the first medic I've had on this podcast. It's actually not a field that I would have immediately associated with climate. So can you tell me. I know why you're on the podcast, but for people who might be wondering, can you tell me why you're on the podcast?

Kinari Webb: 1:50

Perfect. It's interesting. When most people that I encounter in the west who are educated can't quite put it together. Wait a minute. Medicine, conservation, biodiversity, crisis economics. How owners do they go together? But rainforest communities, they get it a hundred percent.

Tom Raftery: 2:11

And why.

Kinari Webb: 2:11

How could you possibly even separate these things?. Now I first got this when I was studying orangutans in the rainforest in Borneo, I thought that's what I was going to do with my life. Be a primatologist,

Tom Raftery: 2:22

So this was before you became a medic.

Kinari Webb: 2:25

yeah, before I became a doctor. Yep. And then I was, in the middle of the most beautiful rainforest imaginable giant, giant rainforest trees studying these orangutans, it was . Magical, but the trees were disappearing around me. And I was sooo mad at these horrible loggers who came from the local communities. What was wrong with them? Didn't they understand that this forest was so important for their own future wellbeing, for the wellbeing of the planet, for the wellbeing of these orangutans and all the other biodiversity. Well, As it turned out, I spoke to many of them. They fully got that a hundred percent. Got it. But they were often logging to pay for healthcare. They were subsistence agriculturals, which means they were growing enough food to feed themselves. And most of the time they were fine, but one medical emergency can cost an entire year's income. So where are you going to get that much cash? Any you can't plan for it, it's totally unexpected. And then suddenly you have this huge outlay of cost. And so one of the major ways you could get money was to log the forest illegally. And from their, understanding fully getting it, that they were destroying their future wellbeing, but they was necessary to get their short-term well-being and this just broke my heart. I just felt like this cannot be in our world where people have that terrible choice to make. One, man, I know, cut down 60 giant rainforest trees to pay for a C-section. How can you have to make that choice? These are probably, many hundred year old, if not thousand year old trees. In the carbon world, we call this irreversible carbon, which is to say that those, you can't get the carbon back in the timeframe of climate change. So I just decided, That I had to do something about this. So I decided to go to medical school and come back, started a nonprofit with the principle of listening to rainforest communities, because obviously they knew what the solutions were in a way that was often completely opaque to outsiders. And yeah, when we, when I got back after residency and Started listening to the communities all the way around this amazingly precious national park, where I'd studied orangutans. Every single community came to the same conclusion. If they had access to high quality affordable healthcare. And interestingly, another total surprise to me, training in organic farming. Then they said they would be able to live in balance with the environment. They would be able to thrive and the forest would be able to thrive and you know what they were right. 10 years later, there was a 90% drop in logging households. There was a stabilization of the loss of the primary forest and 52,000 acres, 21,000 hectors of logged forest grew back and across the board improvements in health and 67% drop in infant mortality. From my perspective, that's just wow, because most non-profits, and I didn't know it was going to work that well. I just of. Based on faith

Tom Raftery: 5:37

Yup. Yup.

Kinari Webb: 5:37

that the communities did know what the solutions were, but they really did. And it's very rare. Unfortunately, for conservation organizations and development organizations to truly listen to communities and just do what they say. There's this colonial belief, right? That outsiders folks from the global north experts, educated people know what the right solutions are, but that's not true. Rainforest communities know what the solutions are.

Tom Raftery: 6:09

Okay. And what kind of solutions are we talking about?

Kinari Webb: 6:13

Yeah. So it's interesting. We've now done radical listening in many places around the world. And what we're finding is while the details are very location specific. They tend to fall in three big categories. One is access to healthcare. Without access to healthcare. You just can't live in balance with your environment, because if you have to choose between your life right now and your future life that's not a choice, right? So healthcare access. Education and that's education for children, but it's also education for adults. All of us want to learn new things and I'm amazed where communities in very remote places have already heard of like, the communities where we work in Southern Madagascar. They asked for training in SRI rice production. Now this is a very innovative, amazing technique for growing rice, where it uses much less water, which is important because as a huge drought in Southern Madagascar caused by climate change and loss of forest, right? Both of those things. Cause the forest creates rain.

Tom Raftery: 7:19

Right here.

Kinari Webb: 7:21

And also it uses much less seed. So you can you plant the seed each individual seed much farther apart. And so then you have more food to eat. And that's also important in a place with real food insecurity, but they'd heard about Sri rice production and wanted to learn how to do it. Right? I was just stunned. Okay we'll find Malagasy folk somewhere else in Madagascar. We can come and train you and sure enough, that's been working geniusly

Tom Raftery: 7:50

Wow.

Kinari Webb: 7:51

yeah.

Tom Raftery: 7:52

And you said there was three buckets.

Kinari Webb: 7:53

Thank you. Nice job reminding me. And the last one is economic wellbeing, right? It's a sustainable livelihood, a livelihood they live that is in balance with the environment. And where your future continually gets better as opposed to, if you're logging every year, there's going to be less trees. And no one knows that better than the loggers and they don't want that livelihood. They want one where every year their life is going to get better, not worse.

Tom Raftery: 8:22

Okay. Okay. Really good. So what does the radical listening that you referred to? What does that entail?

Kinari Webb: 8:33

Yeah. So basically we sit down with a group of 20 to 75. Occasionally we've done a hundred although that is a little too much folks, and we ask them, what would you all need as a thank you from the world community for protecting this precious rainforest? And for me, this is this a thing of reciprocity, it is an indigenous way of doing everything, right. And when you give gifts, someone else gives gifts back. I'm really recognizing that we're all in this together. So we asked, what gift would you like from the world community, given that you are already giving so many amazing gifts in protecting biodiversity and protecting huge amounts of carbon, and these forests, which are also very important for the stabilization of the climate in other ways, besides carbon, right? Also, cycling of rain all the way around the planet. These for us are essential for the well-being of the planet,

Tom Raftery: 10:40

Sure.

Kinari Webb: 10:41

where we work in Brazil. There's about 20,000 people and they are protecting an area of the Amazon that is big as big as the UK. Enormous, vast amounts of forest and, 20,000 people. These are some of the most important people on the planet, because if we lose that forest, it's probably game over for the planet. So we asked them, what would you need as a thank you? And then we radical part is we precisely implement what they say. And I'm amazed when you, we do this in a region, every single group will independently come to the same conclusions about what they need. And as I said, it's usually in those three buckets, something to do with education, something to do with healthcare access and something to do with economic wellbeing, they're all intertwined.

Tom Raftery: 11:36

Yeah. As is it typically one of the three or is it typically three of the three or is it a combination or?

Kinari Webb: 11:42

Two or three of the three. And what we find is that they, it's probably not enough to just do one,

Tom Raftery: 11:52

Okay.

Kinari Webb: 11:52

For example, around going on piling national park, the first place where we worked for communities ask for organic farming training and healthcare access, they did also ask for education of the kids, but it was much less lower down on the list. And we did do that after some years, but Basically, if we had done just healthcare access, that would have been good. But it wouldn't have been enough because they didn't have an alternative livelihood to logging, but with the organic farming training, then they had an alternative livelihood and a way to deal with medical emergencies and that together allowed for the 90% drop in logging households is actually even lower now. So

Tom Raftery: 12:31

No.

Kinari Webb: 12:32

yeah.

Tom Raftery: 12:33

And

Kinari Webb: 12:34

think that there's like an inner relatedness that's very important. And probably the protection of the environment is similarly interrelated. Like it allows for more water for the rice fields, which then allows for more economic wellbeing. It allows for less disease when there's less logging, things like that.

Tom Raftery: 12:54

And why the interest in organic farming, that would strike me as surprising.

Kinari Webb: 13:02

I was just like what are you talking about? How can that be? First of all, I said why don't you just talk to your grandparents? Surely they know how to do this, right? What's going on here. And they said no. The traditional form of agriculture here that our grandparents know is a slash and burn method. And that works really well when there was lots of forest and not many people, but it doesn't work for us anymore. And so we've been shifting. Going right in one place, right? What wet rice agriculture. However, the government has been teaching us how to just buy chemical fertilizers for that land. And every year our soil gets worse until it can be basically unproductive. And it's very expensive to get those chemical fertilizers. And we often even sometimes have to log to get the money to do that.

Tom Raftery: 13:51

Wow.

Kinari Webb: 13:52

So these complex inner connections, and then as a doctor, I'll also say we were seeing lots of, you know, chemical chemical, pesticides, exposure, and toxicity. So it really, it was healthier all around. When they could learn organic methods. And they said, look, we heard that people in other places know how to farm in one place without these chemical fertilizers, but we just don't know how to do it. But on the next door island of Java, there's a many thousand year tradition of sustainable agriculture. And we could bring over experts who taught them. And then there was just this huge, conversion, everyone, just almost very one in one community was studying was 80% of the households had switched to organic methods

Tom Raftery: 14:43

Fabulous.

Kinari Webb: 14:44

making in many cases twice the amount of money, even though sometimes their yield went down a little bit. Their inputs were so much less expensive that overall they were making much more money.

Tom Raftery: 14:55

Wow. Very cool. And How do you find the experts to teach them these various things? You mentioned that there happened to be this island Java alongside in this case where they had people, but there has to be times when you have to scratch your head and go, where would I find someone who knows about SRI rice, for example.

Kinari Webb: 15:16

Yeah, that's, you know one of the thank yous from the world community. I call it right. Is it one of the blessings I have as someone from the global north is that I am incredibly interconnected. I can find, I just call everybody. I call up friends of Stanford. I call up, you know, like, Hey, we need someone and I just did that yesterday. Actually we need a lab analyst in Borneo who can come and train because very sadly our lab analyst, who we've invested in for many years and was the only person in the whole region who could identify uh, leprosy. He just died. So it's just, it's such a heart heartbreaking and terrible loss for the whole community. So we kind of emergency need a lab analyst in there to train a new local analyst. So that's the kind of thing we can just reach out and try to find someone.

Tom Raftery: 16:16

And how is this financed?

Kinari Webb: 16:18

And by the way, if anyone's listening to this and happens to be a lab analyst and would like to come out, please,

Tom Raftery: 16:23

To Borneo. You said, I think,

Kinari Webb: 16:26

we need someone in Borneo like next week. So please,

Tom Raftery: 16:29

okay.

Kinari Webb: 16:32

is it financed? It is financed by people all over the world saying we want to give a thank you. It is financed also by foundations, by government funding. And in, in our first site, over 10 years, we invested 5.2 million. That's a lot of money, including building a $2 million medical facility. It included providing health care to 120,000 people. It included doing all that organic farming training and included giving goats to widows because it turned out we then didn't have enough manure in the communities, so there was a lot that we did with that. But in return the communities gave back in inverted, carbon loss, just in the primary forest.$65 million worth of carbon.

Tom Raftery: 17:18

Wow.

Kinari Webb: 17:18

So in this mutual gift, giving around the world, these communities are giving back so much more to put that in perspective as well. It's about 36,000 us cross country flights. That's how much carbon these communities save.

Tom Raftery: 17:36

And so just to top-line that again, you give them 5 million dollars and they give you back $65 million worth of carbon.

Kinari Webb: 17:45

That's correct.

Tom Raftery: 17:47

That's a good return on investment

Kinari Webb: 17:48

And from my perspective, that's a very good return. So

Tom Raftery: 17:53

and that's just the.

Kinari Webb: 17:54

to make an investment in the future health and harmony.org.

Tom Raftery: 17:59

And That's just the carbon, because as you rightly pointed out, it's, there's huge biodiversity benefits from this as well and local healthcare local you're bringing people, I don't want to say out of poverty, but you're at least raising their quality of life and their health and et cetera.

Kinari Webb: 18:18

That's right. That's right. Exactly. And from my perspective, This is about healing, our planet. And it's about healing three crises simultaneously in one, right? It's the climate crisis. It's the biodiversity and extinction crisis and it's a justice crisis. And all of these crises have been building for a long time. And when I look at the planet on a big scale, I think I'm a doctor, but I work on planetary health. So in a sense, the patient is the planet for me. And when I look at the health of this patient, I know that there have been like bad habits going on for a long time. And in order to heal, we need to focus on, we need to triage the most important parts of the planet, where these crises have really what kind of the point of the store. And that's the tropics, that's the rainforest of the world. You know, it's 50% of the world's biodiversity. These are communities who have had resources stolen from them for hundreds and hundreds of years through colonialism. And that money has been taken to the global north. And basically if some of it is not returned, we are not going to survive as a patient. We have to understand that, you just can't live without your heart and lungs. And the communities that protect these forests they're so important and we should be partnering with them in the health of all of our wellbeing. It's It's across all together.

Tom Raftery: 19:59

Sure. When you hear stories about logging in places like Indonesia and the Amazon the general story you hear is. Big logging companies going in and, cutting down large, swathes of trees. What's the kind of split between that and the local communities who are cutting it down. And, And is there a way to stop the big logging companies from doing it?

Kinari Webb: 20:22

Well, The first thing to say is don't really know the answer to that question because it requires studying it on a scale that we can't yet do. What we do know is that 65% of a carbon loss in the tropics is actually from degradation, not from deforestation. I, I say 65, I meant 69%. So it's, it's almost 70%, but some of that is like edge effects from deforestation. Some of it is burns. A lot of it is also potentially logging, that sort of small scale taking out trees. So absolutely. I'm very worried about the deforestation and I'm so glad that companies are going in and that there are organizations that work with companies to try and stop this. And I want organizations to also work with consumers to try and stop that eat less beef. It'll make a huge difference. Things like that, you know, avoid palm oil. But It's all so important to work with communities in some places, what I would say in all places, the communities have the capacity to be the absolute best guardians of the trees.

Tom Raftery: 21:29

Hmm,

Kinari Webb: 21:30

That's the name of my book, guardians of the trees,

Tom Raftery: 21:33

indeed. Yeah, we haven't mentioned the book. Tell me about the book

Kinari Webb: 21:38

Um, It's about this thing. It's about how communities can be the absolute best guardians of the trees. And in many places really are and are just holding back the tide of deforestation, particularly in the Amazon. And in other places, they want to be the absolute best guardians, but are in this horrible position where they can't be, but by partnering with them, they can be right. And the reference of the book, the title of the book also refers to how everyone in the world needs to be the guardians of the trees and we need to partner together to do that.

Tom Raftery: 22:13

Okay.

Kinari Webb: 22:13

it's a memoir and it's a book about, it's a book about healing. It's a book about the personal healing that needs to happen for us to do this work on the planet. It's a book about the community healing and it's a book about the planetary healing. That they all go together.

Tom Raftery: 22:34

Okay. And I'm assuming the book is available on Amazon or any online store or in your bookstore of choice close by hopefully.

Kinari Webb: 22:46

Yes. And in the UK, it's also available as an electronic version. You can also download,

Tom Raftery: 22:52

Fantastic.

Kinari Webb: 22:53

to it as a podcast, not a podcast. Sorry. I like

Tom Raftery: 22:56

An audio

Kinari Webb: 22:57

audio versus yeah.

Tom Raftery: 22:58

yeah. Very good. Very good.

Kinari Webb: 22:59

Yup.

Tom Raftery: 23:00

Are you thinking about it? Let me ask you first, what kind of scale is your NGO at, at the moment. And is it something that you're trying to grow to a much larger size? Are you trust, sustaining it where it is now or what's the aim there?

Kinari Webb: 23:20

Yeah. Thank you so much for asking me that question. Okay. So here we are. Many estimates are that we have till 2030, but estimates are that we have less than that. Let's just say, put the fire under all of our bottoms, right?

Tom Raftery: 23:38

Yeah.

Kinari Webb: 23:39

This is no joke. I sometimes say we are the most important humans in all of human history and in all of human future, because we are the ones who decide whether or not there will be a future. Yeah, we don't, we're not just sitting here and going, oh well, we're working in three countries. This is great. We're working in, 8 million hectors. That's enough. No, we're done. Nope. We got to scale to the entire tropics and fast. And so the way that we're doing that actually is the only way we can imagine to do it, which is through technology. And we are designing an app called the rain forest exchange. It's not out yet, but it will be in the next few months. And if you go to rainforest exchange.org, you can sign up to hear when we've released it. And the idea is that you will be able to see directly what the solutions are of rainforest communities. That in itself is just revolutionary because. Normally, that's not where the way it's done there are middle organizations, even like ourselves Health And Harmony who mediate, what you know, from the communities. But here, the idea is that you will be able to see directly what the solutions are for communities and invest in those solutions. And then we will partner with many different organizations around the world who can support the solutions of those communities, but only under the direction and control of the communities

Tom Raftery: 25:07

Right.

Kinari Webb: 25:08

Where they are in the driver's seat, because as one of the amazing indigenous activists and she's she's leader of her community, and she's also a medical student do mushy Paya that we have the honor and privilege to work with in the Shingle Basin. She says if indigenous communities had been listened to in the first place, there would be no climate crisis. She's right.

Tom Raftery: 25:33

Yup. Makes sense.

Kinari Webb: 25:34

So let's use our phones to listen to them and then invest in their solutions.

Tom Raftery: 25:40

Okay. And where are you guys operating today and what are your aims? I know it's global domination, but what,

Kinari Webb: 25:48

Sorry

Tom Raftery: 25:48

where are you? Where are you today and where do you want to be? to

Kinari Webb: 25:51

be? We will heal the whole planet, but so we are operating in Madagascar, Indonesia, and Brazil, but like I say, yeah, we understand that it needs to expand quickly beyond that as well.

Tom Raftery: 26:07

Super.

Kinari Webb: 26:08

Yeah. And, it doesn't mean we have to do it. We're fully willing to help just funnel resources to other, especially, global south led organizations. They often just don't have a marketing budget, but they do a brilliant job on the ground. And so also trying to really use this app to help support those already.

Tom Raftery: 26:25

Tremendous given all that you've seen and all you've heard et cetera. Are you optimistic for our future?.

Kinari Webb: 26:36

Oh boy. So the very beginning of my book is a story from when I was a child. I grew up in Northern New Mexico and I was riding my horse up on the Mesa top. And it, this horse saw a, probably a rattlesnake, something like that, reared up spun around, ran straight for the edge of the cliff runaway horse and could not control him whatsoever. He wouldn't go right or left. I completely not responding to the reins, headed straight for the edge of the cliff. We will, we were both going to die. That is what it feels like on our planet. Right now, we are headed straight to the edge of the cliff and the likelihood that we are going to make it feel small. But this experience for me was a very profound experience because I remembered in the back of my mind. So were the, I had read that a horse cannot run when something is hanging from its neck. And so. both, feet on one side, grabbed the pommel, swung myself down underneath this neck at full speed, grabbed his main on both sides and hung from his neck. And he slid to a stop just feet from the edge of the Mesa.

Tom Raftery: 27:48

Wow.

Kinari Webb: 27:51

That is what it feels like. We cannot give up. Even when it feels hopeless, we have got to do everything we can to turn this runaway horse around. And it's possible, even when it feels impossible. It is. And one of the things that I just have the incredible privilege to have lived through is to get to partner with these communities, to see forest disappearing, right. and then to see that loss of forest reversing to see the tide go the other way. And one of the leaders in one of the communities that we partner with, he said, we are the Pathfinders for where the world needs to go in how to live in balance with our earth. And now we want to teach the world. It's possible.

Tom Raftery: 28:47

Amazing.

Kinari Webb: 28:47

I heard a phrase the other day that just really stunned me. The humans are keystone species. That we don't think about ourselves that way. We think about ourselves often as a cancer on the planet, but we are a Keystone species. We have a capacity to turn things around, to nurture and honor and care for our planet and her ecosystems and to help all of it thrive.

Tom Raftery: 29:19

Yeah.

Kinari Webb: 29:20

And without that, we're not going to make it, but we can do it if we work together. So let's stop this horse.

Tom Raftery: 29:30

Very good. Very good. Kinari we're coming towards the end of the podcast now, is there any question I haven't asked you that you wish I had, or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of or to think about.

Kinari Webb: 29:47

For me, it is, it's a really key theme in my book, guardians of the trees that it is about thriving. It is about thriving for all of us. And it is about thriving on a personal level that investing in your own healing, the own, your own, like intergenerational trauma, colonialism racism, individual personal trauma is part of, what's gotten us in this problem and that when that healing happens, it facilitates many other layers of healing. So I really want us to all be like, understanding that all those things are interrelated and that we can do it. We can do it by, by not dividing things into silos, including ourselves.

Tom Raftery: 30:39

Okay. Very good. If people want to know more about yourself Kinari Webb or about your organization or your book or any of the topics we talked about in the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Kinari Webb: 30:53

I'm going to give you three websites, actually. And they're all interconnected, so you can find them from each other, but, okay. Rainforest exchange.org. That's our new that's where you can sign up for the new app health and harmony.org, where you can donate and partner with rainforest communities. And I also want to give you radical listening.org. So if you want to learn how to become a radical listener, because I believe this is applicable in many different contexts, we offer a free webinar once a month. So sign up and join us, and learn!

Tom Raftery: 31:28

That's spectacular. I'll put those

Kinari Webb: 31:30

Actually, I should give you one more guardians on the trees.

Tom Raftery: 31:34

Yeah. Is, does that have a website or

Kinari Webb: 31:37

It does guardians of the trees.org. And you can see like Jane Goodall and bill McKibben have reviewed the book and loved it.

Tom Raftery: 31:43

Oh, tremendous. Tremendous. That's incredible. I will put links to those in the show notes as well, just in case anyone is listening to this and doesn't have a pen or a paper handy. You can just check it out on the podcast, in the notes for this episode, and you'll find all the links there Kinari that's been really interesting. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast today.

Kinari Webb: 32:03

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much for doing this important work in the world. It's essential to get the word out about all kinds of work that's happening on our planet.

Tom Raftery: 32:10

It really is. Thanks so much. Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about climate 21, feel free to drop me an email to Tom dot Raftery at sap.com or connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you liked the show, please don't forget to subscribe to it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks catch you all next time.