Hi, this is Paul Zellizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneur. Our goal is to help increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Brando Crespi, and our topic is lessons from the Amazon to help solve the climate crisis. Brando Crespi is the founder and executive chair of Global Biochar Inc, a company focused on the deployment of biochar and green charcoal as the most effective way to mitigate our climate crisis while also addressing food security, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and global health issues.

He also focuses on philanthropic and advisory work as a cofounder in 1985 and still executive vice chair of the Brazilian born NGO, ProNatura Internacional. For more than 3 decades, Crespi has helped design, fund, and implement developmental projects using many biochar and climate smart agriculture in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Over the last decades, PNI has deployed €1,600,000,000 in 63 countries and has helped lift over 7,000,000 people out of what was often abject poverty. Brando Crespi, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Paul. Great to be here with you.

And I just wanna do a quick shout out to Sandy Hirschberg, incredible ecosystem builder here in New Mexico. He says, Paul, you need to talk to Brando. And if you haven't known this yet or hadn't heard this yet, we are doing one episode a month of a New Mexico based social entrepreneur or impact leader, and Brando is up in Santa Fe now. So, Sandy, like, you have to talk to him because he's amazing. And I think you're right, Sandy. Thank you so much. So, Brando, you've been at this a long time. And a key to our topic today is about your time in the Amazon.

You found something there, or you were turned on to something there. You're like, wait, wait, wait. Something's happening here that's really powerful. Tell us about your time there, and what was it that you discovered during your time in the Amazon?

Oh, that's a loaded question, because, the Amazon is, you know, at best, one of the most extraordinary cathedrals on this planet. You feel the presence of spirit so loudly. And, you know, we have an image of the Amazon as a forest. You have to bring a machete to chop your way through, Well, that's secondary forest. That's what's grown after the trees have been cut down. Most of the pristine Amazon you could bicycle in. It's, fairly dark down there because the canopy is so thick, and that stops lower growing plants from growing. So that's why, you know, the the first thing that comes to mind for me when I think of my various trips of the Amazon is just the magnificence and the miracle of it and the diversity of it.

Like, I still remember every first night in the Amazon, I can't sleep because of the actual unusual noises, you know, the birds, insects. I mean, there are even noises which sound metallic, and it's really birds and insects. And and I was in a bar once in Sao Paulo, and I heard them again. And there were 2 Amerindians walked into the bar, and they were just playing and making these noises. I was just so amazed. It could be the sound the metallic sound could come out of one's mouth. And I'm sorry. I'm just riffing off some of the extraordinary experiences that one has there.

And, you know, all of this is there's a shadow over what I'm telling you about because so much of it is in jeopardy. You know? It's drying up. It's catching fire. But on a on a to to come back to your question. I'm sorry. I just got off on that. James Lovelock, who was one of the great environmentalists of the last century, he just died a few years ago. I think he was, I don't know, a 100 or something.