Putting his Money to Good Use ,,,,

Creator of the online video game Fortnite, Tim Sweeney, has been captivating audiences for decades by developing intricate and interactive digital worlds for players. However, it is his work away from the screen that is currently grabbing attention from gamers and non-gamers alike.

Sweeney is best known for founding the video and 3-D software company Epic Games in the 1990’s. Epic Games has given us popular video game titles such as Unreal Tournament, Gears of War and, most recently, the massively popular game Fortnite. In addition to these popular gaming titles, the billionaire philanthropist has made good on his promise to protect undeveloped and bio-diverse land in the picturesque western Carolina mountains for future generations.

Since 2008, Sweeney has spent millions on conservation projects in his home state of North Carolina to protect and preserve its forest land. He has purchased nearly 40,000 acres over the last decade, making him one of the largest private land owners in the state. Sweeney has also donated money to several conservation parcel projects, including a 1,500 acre expansion to Mount Mitchell State Park.

In November 2016, Sweeney donated $15 million for a conservation easement to protect 7,000 acres of the The Box Creek Wilderness. The forest, located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, had been targeted by a company that wanted to carve up the land and run power lines through it.

By purchasing the land, Sweeney helped protect hundreds of endangered plant and animal species. According to Biologist Kevin Cadlwell, “ecologists documented more than 130 rare and watch-list plant and wildlife species, and several new-to‐science wildlife and plant species, including three moths and a new spiderwort species.

After the purchase Sweeney remarked:

It’s one of the most diverse areas in North Carolina. It has such rare plant and wildlife species, it seemed a perfect fit with the Fish and Wildlife Service. This is a first step – there will be other places protected. The goal is to connect South Mountains State Park to Chimney Rock. This is one piece of the puzzle.

A year later Sweeney purchased 193 acres in Alamance County for $1.973 million from Sizemore Brothers LLC. Following the purchase, Sweeney’s representative Joe Kelleher confirmed the purchase and guaranteed that the land would remain undeveloped.

Last year, the video game mogul purchased a 1,500 acre parcel of land known as Stone Hills that was being considered for development as a golf resort community. A local newspaper noted that the land would have featured two championship golf courses, a resort hotel and spa, a community of 1,050 homes and up to 90,000 square feet of retail, dining and office space. Following the purchase, Sweeney stated he intends to preserve the land for its’ natural beauty.

I bought this land because it has a nice longleaf pine forest and was available for a reasonable price. I’ll be holding it until I find a permanent nature conservation home for it, which will take years or decades.” When asked what he intends to do with the land in the short term Sweeney replied, “I just plan to hike it and do some tree thinning and burning for ecosystem restoration until I find a permanent conservancy or state home for it.”

Sweeney’s conservation efforts come at a time when protecting our nation’s forests has become increasingly important. As previously reported by The Mind Unleashed, a study led by North Carolina State University professor Nick Haddad and conducted by 24 scientists, found that there are only 2 truly intact forests left on Earth. When the study’s authors examined the effects of human involvement on forests, they found habitat fragmentation leads to 13 to 75 percent decrease in plant and animal diversity, reduces the ability of animals and plants to survive and can even distort the food chain, as smaller patches of forest tend to have an increase in predator population

Thankfully, as science continues to learn more about the importance of undeveloped forest land, billionaire philanthropists are noticing and taking action. China’s wealthiest man has also taken note of the importance of conservation. In 2015, Jack Ma, the billionaire behind online retail giant Alibaba, purchased 28,000 acres of land in the Adirondack mountains of upstate NY. His first action taken after purchasing the land was to halt logging operations.

from:    https://themindunleashed.com/2019/01/fortnite-creator-buying-thousands-acres-forest.html

Forests – Vanishing Species

Study Reveals the Sad Truth: There Are Only Two Truly Intact Forests Left on Earth

We are used to thinking that a forest that is carved up by roads and settlements can still be called a forest. However, the results of a new study suggest quite the opposite, claiming that forest fragmentation has lasting detrimental effects on our planet’s ecosystems. In other words, a fragmented forest ceases to be a good natural habitat for wild animals and plants, which has a long-term negative impact on the ecosystem and the environment in general. Moreover, the study concludes that there are only two truly intact forests left on Earth – the rainforests of the Amazon and the Congo.

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and involved 24 scientists from different countries led by Nick Haddad, a professor at North Carolina State University. Their task was to analyze the results of the experiments which have been conducted on five continents for decades and were aimed to simulate the effects of human activity on forests.

The researchers studied the impact of forest fragmentation on wildlife and came to astonishing and, at the same time, disappointing conclusions. It appears that the habitat fragmentation leads to 13 to 75 percent decrease in plant and animal diversity! It basically reduces the ability of animals and plants to survive and can even distort the food chain, as smaller patches of forest tend to have an increase in the predator population.

At the same time, forests with more edges have reduced core ecosystem functions, such as the ability to sequester carbon dioxide, which plays an important role in alleviating the climate change effects, and display a decline in productivity and pollination.

Thus, forest fragmentation affects the integrity of the natural habitat – that is why such forests exhibit a decline of wildlife. According to the results of the study, the most significant losses took place in the smallest patches of forest and closest to a habitat edge. What is even more disappointing is that more than 70% of the world’s forests lie within one kilometer of a habitat edge!

Nearly 20 percent of the world’s remaining forests are the distance of a football field, or about 100 meters, away from forest edges. Seventy percent of forest lands are within a half-mile of forest edges. That means almost no forests can really be considered wilderness,” said professor Haddad.

The researchers also emphasize that the effects of forest fragmentation may remain unnoticed for years and only get worse over time. It was found that, on average, fragmented forests have more than a 50% decrease in plant and animal species abundance within just 20 years!

The effects of current fragmentation will continue to emerge for decades. We still haven’t seen the full extent of what our slicing and dicing of the forests has wrought,” the researchers said.

Well, it is another study to show how terribly we, humans, treat our own planet… When will the humanity realize that, if we don’t change our attitude towards the nature and the environment, we will soon have no planet at all? The only way to save the environment and ourselves is to live in harmony with nature rather than to continue ruining and exhausting it with our activity. I hope the humanity will come to this understanding before it is too late.

from:    http://themindunleashed.org/2015/04/study-reveals-the-sad-truth-there-are-only-two-intact-forests-left-on-earth.html

Forests & Lifestyle

The Gaian Mind

Forests As Sanctuaries

forest wonders

We all know how intricate are the relationships between a single tree and the forms of life that live with it, and around it. But why are trees so important to human beings who are after all–as forms of life–so distinct and different from trees? Though distinctive and different, human beings are part of the same heritage of life.

Trees and forests are important for deep psychological reasons. In returning to the forest, we are returning to the womb not in psychological terms but in cosmological terms. We are returning to the source of our origin. We are entering communion with life at large. The existence of the forests is so important because they enable us to return to the source of our origin. They provide for us a niche in which our communion with all life can happen.

The unstructured environments which we need for our sanity and for our mental health, as well as for the moments of silent brooding without which we cannot truly reach our deeper selves, should not be limited to forests only. Rugged mountains and wilderness areas provide the same nexus for being at one with the glory of the elemental forces of life. Wilderness areas are live-giving in a fundamental sense, nourishing the core of our being. This core of our being is sometimes called the soul.

To understand the nature of the human being is ultimately a metaphysical journey; in the very least it is a transphysical journey. Transphysical translated into the Greek language means metaphysical. The metaphysical meaning of forests has to do with the quality of spaces the forests provide for the tranquility of our souls. Those are the spaces of silence, the spaces of sanity, the spaces of spiritual nourishment–within which our being is healed and at peace.

We all know how soul-destroying and destructive to our inner being modern cities can be; and actually are. The comparison alone between the modus of a technological city and the modus of a wilderness area informs us sufficiently about the metaphysical meaning of the spaces of forests, of the mountains, of the marshlands.

Though the trees are immensely important to our psychic well-being, not every tree possesses the same energy and meaning. The manicured French parks and the primordial Finnish forests are different entities. In the manicured French parks we witness the triumph of the Cartesian logic and of Euclidean geometry, while in the Finnish forests, immensely brooding and surrounded by irregular, female-like lakes we witness the triumph of natural geometry.

What is natural and what is artificial is nowadays difficult to determine. However, when we find ourselves among the plastic interiors of an airport, with its cold brutal walls and lifeless plastic fixtures surrounding us, on the one hand, and within the bosom of a big forest, on the other hand, we know exactly the difference without any ambiguity. In the forest our soul breathes, while in plastic environments our soul suffocates.

The idea that our soul breathes in natural unstructured environments should not be treated as a poetic metaphor. It is a palpable truth. This truth has been recognized on countless occasions, and in many contexts…although usually indirectly and semi-consciously.

Life wants to breathe. We breathe more freely when there are other forms of life which can breathe around us. Old beams made of oak in an old cottage breathe. Those panelings made of wood in the modern flat breathe. And we breathe with them. Those plastic interiors, and those concrete cubicles, and those tower blocks, and those rectilinear cities do not breathe. We find them ‘sterile,’ ‘repulsive,’ ‘depressing.’ Those very adjectives come straight from the core of our beings. And those are not just the reactions of some idosyncratic individuals, but the reactions of all of us, at least a great majority of us.

A plastic interior may be aesthetically pleasing. Yet after a while, our soul finds it uncomfortable, constraining, somewhat crippling. The primordial life in us responds quite unequivocally to our environments. We have to learn to listen carefully to the beat of the primordial life in us, whether we call it instinct, intuition, or the wholistic response. We do respond with great sensitivity to spaces, geometries and forms of life surrounding us. We respond positively to the forms which breathe life for these forms are life-enhancing. Life in us wants to be enhanced and nourished. Hence we want to be in the company of forms that breathe life.

It is therefore very important to dwell in surroundings in which there are forms that can breathe…the wooden beams, the wooden floors. Lucky are the nations that can build houses made of wood…inside and outside. For the wood breathes, changes, decays…as we do. It is also important to have flowers and plants in our living environment. For they breathe. To contemplate a flower for three seconds may be an important journey of solitude, a journey of return to original geometry…which is always renewing. We make these journeys actually rather often, whenever plants and flowers are in our surroundings. But we are rarely aware of what we are doing.

Forests and spirituality are intimately connected. Ancient people knew about this connection and cherished and cultivated it. Their spirit was nourished because their wisdom told them where the true sources of nourishment lay.

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The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demand for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life’ s activity; it affords protection to all beings, offering shade even to the axeman who destroys it.

Buddha

Towards a Spiritual Renewal

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We are now reassessing the legacy of the entire technological civilization and what it has done to our souls and our forests. Our problem is no longer how to manage our forests and our lives more efficiently in order to achieve further material progress. We now ask ourselves more fundamental questions: How can we renew ourselves spiritually? What is the path to life that is whole? How can we survive as humane and compassionate beings? How can we maintain our spiritual and cultural heritage?

The wilderness areas, which I call life-giving areas, are important for three reasons, Firstly, they are important as sanctuaries. Various forms of life might not have survived without them.

Secondly, they are important as givers of timber that breathes and out of which will be made beautiful panels and beams that breathe life into our homes.

Thirdly, and most significantly, they are important as human sanctuaries, as places of spiritual, biological and psychological renewal. As the chariot of progress which is the demon of ecological destruction moves on, we wipe out more and more sanctuaries. They disappear under the axe of man, are polluted by plastic environments, are turned into Disneylands.

The rebuilding of sanctuaries is vital for the well-being of our body and the well-being of our soul, for the two act in unison. We have lost the meaning of the Temple (Templum) in now deserted churches.

We have to recreate this meaning from the foundations. We have to re-sacralize the world, for otherwise our existence will be sterile. We live in a disenchanted world. We have to embark on the journey of the re-enchantment of the world. We have to recreate rituals and special ceremonies through which most precious aspects of life are expressed and celebrated.

Forests still inspire us and infuse us with the sense of awe and mystery . . . that is when we have time and the quietness of mind to lose ourselves in them. And here is an important message. Forests may again become sacred enclosures where great rituals of life are performed, and where the celebration of the uniqueness and mystery of life and the universe is taking place. It depends on our wills to make the forests the places of the re-sacralization of the world. The first steps in this direction were taken when by the famous Polish director, Jerzy Grotowski, who has abandoned the theatre in order to make nature and particularly forests the sacred grounds for man’s new communion with the cosmos.We must develop a similar spirit of reverence and empathy for the trees and forests. For they are true sanctuaries.

This article by Henryk Skolimowski has been republished from The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension

from:    http://www.shift.is/2015/01/gaian-mind/

GMO Trees

Check out this video on GMO trees, what they are, how they are, and think about it.  oH, and as always, do the research:

Video Information

The largely unknown potential danger to human health and the environmental health of our planet posed by the planned introduction of genetically engineered trees is explored in “Silent Forest.” Narrated by Dr. David Suzuki, the film lays out, in compelling detail, the dangers of open-air plantations of these untested man-made trees. And the added problem of intellectual property rights. “A Silent Forest” is a wake-up call to the dangers of genetic engineering of trees and the impact it could have on all of us.

 

http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=CB069DB645440DF9AF4E74E8BA4C5E77

 

from:    http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=CB069DB645440DF9AF4E74E8BA4C5E77

Saving Trees in Tasmania

Tasmanian Forest Deal Brings End to a Conflict While Saving Trees

by Nicklas Karlsson | August 05, 2011

The federal Australian government has signed a deal with Tasmania which ensures the preservation of, at least, 430,000 hectars of ancient high conservation value forests.

The 430,000 hectars will be immediately protected from logging, while an additional 142,000 hectars will be set aside for eventual needs to fulfill existing logging contracts.

The conflict which has been unfolding for nearly 30 years between the federal government and state government circulates around issues of financial dependence upon logging rights. $276 million has been pledged, of which $85 million is earmarked as an exit package for forestry contractors, and some $120 million for the purpose of diversifying the economy of towns dependent on forestry over the next 15 years.

to read more, go to:   http://www.greatnewsnetwork.org/index.php/news/article/tasmanian_forest_deal_brings_end_to_a_conflict_while_saving_trees/