No Impact Man

What makes a life good for a) The planet and b) Ourselves

So I'm having breakfast with a friend of mine who is having kind of a midlife crisis and he tells me that when he was young, he had the choice between going into finance and one of the arts and he chose finance. He felt, in a lot ways, like this was contrary to the person he was, but he needed financial security.

Thirty years later he reconsidering his life direction, and we were talking about how he was so driven to succeed during his career in finance. He told me this: "On some level, because I made a choice that was dissatisfying to my character, I felt like I had to wrest a great reward from my finance career. I felt like if I can't pursue my art I better get a lot of money and toys."

How about that?

Everything about our society is about facilitating economic--and therefore material--throughput. It is how our culture is designed. The idea is to facilitate our earning more so we can spend more so the factories can make more so we can earn more so we can spend more...

But what if the human destiny is to become more than an earning and spending machine? What if human destiny is to have our basic physical needs met, so that we don't have to eek out an existence, and then to pursue our higher interests, development of our innate talents and the becoming of all that we could be as people?

Might a society that facilitates self actualization make people happier than one that facilitates the earn more to spend more model? Because if we were able to structure our culture in such a way--where people like my friend didn't necessarily have to make the stark choice between making a living and following a calling--might we find that we required less money and toys? Might we find that we yearned less to use up the resources that the planet can ill-afford to give us?

As it stands, all of us are supposed to be, essentially, "service workers" or "knowledge workers" because that is what the economy demands. The consolation for fitting our round peg temperaments into these square peg jobs is that we get the money and toys, just like my friend.

The question becomes, if our culture facilitated following our calling instead of following the dollars, might we all find that we were a lot more content with having less stuff? Might people and the planet both benefit?

On an individual level, does that suggest that if we want to live using fewer resources but still be happy the way to do it is to pursue our passions instead of our paychecks?

Just a thought.

Because it turns out that the question "How shall we live ecologically?" may just as easly shortened to simply "How shall we live?"

No Impact Man interviewed on Democracy Now!

You can watch the interview on video here (it starts at the 49:10 time mark), listen to it as an mp3 here, or read the transcript below:

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, on this Christmas Eve, I’m joined by a man who makes a compelling environmental case for a non-consumptive Christmas. We’re joined by Colin Beavan, also known as the No Impact Man. Together with his wife and his little girl, spent a year attempting to minimize their ecological footprint while continuing to live in the heart of New York City.

Well, Colin Beavan, I’m going to have you tell us your story, what you did, as YES! magazine wrote about your attempts to have, what, a Christmas without presents, “one family’s daring experiment: Christmas without all the stuff.” What did you do?

COLIN BEAVAN: Well, for one year, we tried to live as ecologically as possible in response to our environmental crises. And as part of that one year, we tried to consume as little as possible. And the idea was not to take any new resources out of the ground. So that meant when Christmas came along, we had to figure out what to do, especially in light of the fact that we had a little girl.

AMY GOODMAN: How old?

COLIN BEAVAN: She’s three-and-a-half now.

AMY GOODMAN: So what did you do?

COLIN BEAVAN: Well, you know, it’s funny. In our rule, in terms of not pulling new resources from the ground, what we decided was two things. One was that we would buy as gifts for people experiences, as opposed to things, you know, theater, massage—but my little girl doesn’t like massage—and secondhand things.

And this particular Christmas, we were with family, and what we did was we took a lot of her cousin’s old toys and wrapped them up, because we wanted to make sure she had as many toys to wrap up as they did. But what was really interesting—and research bears this out, in terms of what people really enjoy at Christmas—was that when it came time to open presents, she, you know, undid the wrapping paper for a while, but really what she wanted to do was sit on the piano bench and sing with her uncle. And the research shows that this is true. We tend to think of environmentalism as some sort of deprivation. But the fact of the matter is, is that this emphasis on stuff that we have at Christmas, research out of Kent University shows it doesn’t make us happier. What tends to make us happier at Christmas is time spent with our families. So if we change the emphasis, we can be happier and save the planet at the same time.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you spent a year eating only locally produced food.

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: No elevators?

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: No subways, cars, trains, planes, buses, or no packaged products, no plastics, no air-conditioning. But I want to—no elevators?

COLIN BEAVAN: Well, it was an experiment. So the idea in our experiment was to reduce our ecological impact as much as possible, which meant not using fossil fuel-powered electricity. I mean, if our elevators were powered by wind turbines and solar panels, we would have had no problem, but, you know, they’re not.

And the experiment, part of the experiment was to say, what that our culture provides us that has ecological impact do we actually need, because the real definition of “waste,” by my terms, is if we use resources that don’t even make us happy. So, for example, we, in New York, New Yorkers use taxicabs a lot and—or even subways. And we didn’t use them. Instead, what we did was we biked everywhere, and biked and walked and used a foot scooter. And although it was an extreme, in terms of the fact that even when it was raining we biked, and even like this, what we discovered is that the alternative to mechanized transportation was that we got exercise; we got to see our neighbors, because we weren’t whizzing past them; we got to be part of the cityscape; and that actually some of the so-called conveniences that we have don’t necessarily always make our life better.

AMY GOODMAN: In the YES! magazine piece, you’re quoted as saying one-sixth of all American retail sales and, as a consequence, a hefty proportion of our national planetary resource use occurs during the holiday season.

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: A sixth.

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm, that’s right, so many of our resources. And here’s the thing. The question, when it comes to the whole, you know, Christmas present thing is, again, it’s not just about the planet; it’s about whether it makes us happy. This whole—you know, everybody—I know that everybody today is waking up stressed with this last-minute rush to go and get what they feel they’re obliged to get. But the research actually shows that the more money we spend at Christmas time and the more money—get this, the more money that is spent on us at Christmas time, the less we actually enjoy Christmas. So it turns out that if we could take all this time that we’re spending at the mall and instead use it to spend hanging out with our friends, hanging out with our families, singing, playing charades, whatever it is we do together, that we might enjoy it actually more.

AMY GOODMAN: So you did this last holiday season.

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: What about this holiday season?

COLIN BEAVAN: This holiday season is largely the same. You know, once you spend a year, you know, thinking about how your actions affect the planet and combine that with whether those actions are making your life better or not, you know, it’s kind of a mind-changing sort of thing. So, similarly, this Christmas, we’re giving experiences, we’re giving secondhand things, we’re not buying things in packaging, just because—not necessarily because it’s better for the planet, but because it feels better.

AMY GOODMAN: And how does your daughter talk about it?

COLIN BEAVAN: Oh, my daughter, you know, for example, you mention the elevators, you know, going up and down the stairs, she was just—you know, she always would ride our shoulders going up and down the stairs. She loved that kind of thing, riding around. We ride around New York City. She rides on—I have a rickshaw, like a three-wheeled bicycle, and she rides on the back like a chariot. She loves that. You know, little kids—people often ask me how will I teach my little girl about this stuff, but the fact of the matter is she taught us.

AMY GOODMAN: And does she know that she’s doing this differently than her friends?

COLIN BEAVAN: Part of the no impact living is not eating meat, because meat production is one of the top sources of greenhouse gas emissions. So we used to do this chant, “We’re vegetarians. We don’t eat meat. We love cheese,” Isabella used to say. And then, one day she noticed that all her friends were eating meat, and she said, “Dad, I don’t want to be a vegetarian anymore. I want to eat meat.” So, last Thanksgiving, I said, “OK, you know what? You can have turkey.” And she was all excited. “I’m going to have turkey! I’m going to have turkey!” And then, it got to the moment, and she took her fork, she lifted the turkey up to her mouth, and as soon as she got a smell of it, she put it down. And she’s never objected to being a vegetarian since.

AMY GOODMAN: So, this is Christmas Eve. What do you recommend to people right now? I mean, some people have gone out and bought all their gifts, or they’re racing out right now.

COLIN BEAVAN: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: What are places they can go, thoughts they could—or should they just stop in their tracks?

COLIN BEAVAN: No, I think the way to live life is to really look inwardly and to ask ourselves, how do we want to live our lives? So, I would say, at this stage, especially as it’s Christmas Eve, and everything’s been done and planned, tomorrow, when Christmas comes, ask—ask yourself, what part of this day am I enjoying the most? Because I remember when I was a little kid, we would have—you know, we would have the Christmas present opening, and then there would be this kind of deflated feeling, like the presents were done. It didn’t make my day as great as I thought it was going to make it. You know, now what? And if we then move onto singing together, eating together, having family time together, then we can see which actually are we enjoying the most. So I would say, tomorrow, ask yourself during the day, is it the presents that you enjoy the most, the family that you enjoy the most, the friends that you enjoy the most? And then, next year, you can choose which you’re going to prioritize.

AMY GOODMAN: I didn’t even realize, Colin Beavan, that there was a Journal of Happiness. It’s quoted in YES! magazine.

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: This study by researchers Tim Kasser of Knox College and Kennon Sheldon of University of Missouri-Columbia. “After studying the Christmas experiences of 117 individuals, they found that people who emphasized time spent with families and meaningful religious or spiritual activities had merrier Christmases.”

COLIN BEAVAN: That’s right. And that’s what everybody can find tomorrow if they just evaluate their own experiences.

AMY GOODMAN: Your website?

COLIN BEAVAN: My website is noimpactman.com.
P>AMY GOODMAN: And what are you, overall, trying to do with this, with your blog?

COLIN BEAVAN: Overall, I’m trying to encourage us all to participate in our cultural response to the environmental crises that we have. And it’s not just an environmental crisis anymore. We’re seeing with the economy now, actually we have a crisis in our way of life. So the question is, is this way of life that we’re leading—we know that it’s not doing the planet any good, but is it doing us good, too? And I think that to find the answers to this, we have to work together, and we all have to participate. And that’s what we talk about on my blog.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us, and have a happy holiday. Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, he blogs at noimpactman.com. His book about his experiences is out next September. His latest article for YES! magazine, “A Christmas Without Presents?” which could be the greatest present of all to yourself, your family and to the planet.

Beyond the rational?

We've had discussions about the the causal relationship between individual action and societal change here on the blog. Recently, we've had quite the debate about whether even collective action--in the form of protest--can cause changes in our society.

But it occurs to me that the ripples of trying--whether it is in the individual sphere or the collective--might move beyond the realm that we can see and understand, beyond the rational.

Admittedly, I've been reading a lot of Carl Jung lately, so I'm under the romantic spell of his idea that psychology ascends beyond the personal to the transpersonal. Jung believed that our Selves were not entirely separate so to change the consciousness of one person was to change the consciousness of the entire race.

So what I want to ask is, might it be possible that when one of us changes our consciousness and begins to take responsibility for responding to our environmental crises that, on some level, we help to change everyone?

Might it be possible that a change in a puppet affects the Puppet Master and that the effect in the Puppet Master, in turn, affects all the other puppets?

If so, isn't this just another reason why all of us should try?

Open Discussion: So what do we think of Christmas

I'm taking some down time this week, but just in case you're not, and you want some diversion, let's talk holidays. Some huge percent of our country's resource consumption is happening right under our feet. We're part of it--if not out of inclination then, often, out of obligation.

What's it feel like? Could it be better? Are you enjoying it? Is it challenging? Does the economy beg a different way of thinking in this season? Does the environment? Weigh on in!

Now then, as for all you readers who get the blog by email, you will actually have to come to the web page itself to participate and to read what other readers are saying.

To do it, click on NoImpactMan.com. Scroll down and you'll see the word "comments." Click on that and you will be able to see what everyone is saying and you will also be able to leave comments or questions of your own.

Individual action vs collective action

Lest you all think, that with my recent calls for collective action, that I have abandoned individual action, please read my post at WorldChanging about how the two are in separable. Leave your comments there but leave them here too!

A continuing debate erupts within the environmental movement about the relative merits of individual versus collective action. Back in 2007, on the subject of individual action, The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote,

You can change lights. You can change cars. But if you don't change leaders, your actions are nothing more than an expression of, as Dick Cheney would say, "personal virtue."

I heard criticisms like Friedman's constantly throughout a one-year project in environmental living that I took on under the moniker No Impact Man. What difference can one person make? Having had a lot of critics who forced me to look at the issue, I've come to some conclusions.

Firstly, there is one circumstance under which one person absolutely cannot make a difference: if that one person doesn't try. And if we don't try, who among us knows whether we have foregone the chance to influence the people around us? Which one of us knows for sure that, by applying our talents and efforts to what we believe in, whether we might become a Martin Luther King Jr. or a Bobby Kennedy or an Al Gore or a Betty Friedan or a Nelson Mandela?

Not that these great names are necessarily the most important aspects of movements...

Read the rest of the post here.

PS Did you guys know that the man character in this week's Law & Order was apparently modeled after me? Too weird.

How does a society effect rapid change?

I posted the last couple of days about the occupation of the Capital Power Plant, spearheaded by Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry.

Why were there so few comments? How come, when we talk about how to compost, we get a huge discussion, but when we mention civil disobedience, there is quiet?

Do we all agree that we are facing an emergency? Do we agree that we need rapid societal change in order to deal with the emergency? Do we have a better way to deal with this emergency than protests?

Sharon wrote:

"The problem I foresee is that no matter how effective this gesture is, it will probably only be a gesture. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, but the reality of the convergence of peak oil and climate change means that if we are to make real shifts in the situation, among other things, we'd have to a have a populace willing to do with a lot less... I am still a little mystified about why you don't actually ask your readers to do the thing that might actually matter - demonstrate, not just for one evening a la Earth Hour, but in their lives, that they are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to shut down the coal plants."

Jen wrote:

"I'm waaaay over the protest model of civil disobedience. Don't get me wrong - I'm planning to go to this - but I want other options for political activism... It seems to me we need more - more ways to be activist. We need a new model for civic engagement that supplements sixties-style civil disobedience and inspires all those people who roll their eyes at this kind of protest. We need those voices too - how can we inspire them to speak?"

I have to admit to being flummoxed at times. The obstacles are great. There is still not a critical mass of people who believe we are in a crisis and who can overcome the influence of special interests in the political realm. Nor do there seem to be enough people willing to change their lifestyles to have sufficient effect to reduce our resource use substantially.

So, what?

Two things, I think: One is that we have to continue to look for and examine new methods of activism.

I like a model I call "distributed power," where we become self-sufficient enough in our energy generation and food growth, as examples, to take the power out of the hands of centralized corporations and "distribute" the power to the people. But again, we're back to the question of how to get enough people to participate.

The other way forward is to start from where we are. That is to say, if the only tools we have are dispersed individual action and gesture-like political action, then we accept that, for now, those are the tools we have. We can't afford to wait around until we have the best plan.

In other words, just because we don't know if there might be more efficient ways to start doesn't mean we shouldn't start. Just because we don't know what step four or five in the process should be, doesn't mean we shouldn't take step one.

Just because we aren't sure if we'll make a difference doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

When I say we, I don't just mean the radicals in the crowd. I mean all of us. If you believe, as I do, that there is an emergency, then it's time to stop outsourcing your concerns simply because you've never imagined yourself to be an activist.

It's time to try. It's time for all of us to try.

Why civil disobedience may be necessary on climate change

A couple of days ago, I posted an invitation from environmental activists Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry to participate in the occupation of the Capital Power Plant in March. Some commenters on this blog responded favorably. Some were concerned.

Susan Och wrote:

Civil disobedience is supposed to be a last resort, after you have exhausted all other avenues. How many of us have actually written to all of our elected officials, talked to all of our friends and neighbors, written our letters to the editors, or done absolutely all we can to curb our use of energy?

Let me tell you my position: I will be there.

I'm afraid we are at the place of last resort. If you don't yet understand why we need to take radical action to reverse the greenhouse gas emission trend, read here and here. This is an EMERGENCY.

It's a scientific emergency, yes, but it's also a political emergency, because governments around the world are not taking the scientific emergency seriously enough. It's up to us--citizens who aren't used to getting involved in politics and activism--to give those governments a wake up call.

Read a memo from Betsy Taylor of 1Sky reporting on how the  international response to the climate crisis at the recent climate change negotiations at Poznan is way too weak. Here's the highlight:

• "It’s going to take a lot more than the bureaucratic and chaotic process I watched in Poznan over the past two weeks for us to cut global warming emissions as deeply and quickly as scientists say is necessary.

  "I am not the only one who feels this way. Bill McKibben of 350.org, Al Gore, Dr. James Hansen, and most recently the Alliance of Small Island Nations (AOSIS) are all calling for deeper cuts in emissions and for public actions to turn things around. The path to a global deal in Copenhagen, just one year from now, will not be successful unless we have a louder, and more visible, bottom-up push for change. It’s time to get serious about mass mobilization."

• "According to several sources, including leaders from the wind industry with whom I spoke directly, lobbying by the coal, cement, steel and fossil fuel companies was furious, relentless and ultimately overwhelming in the context of the European fiscal meltdown. According to a senior EU Commission official quoted in the Financial Times, “about 90% of European manufacturers would qualify for free carbon permits under the package.”

• This deal won’t result in adequate CO2 reductions in the time we have. The last minute demands of the power plant and industrial sectors are a likely predictor of what we can expect in the States as groups battle for a strong climate bill in Congress. Lets face it, the U.S. fossil fuel lobby makes the European coal companies look like wimps.

• A growing number of experts and governments insist we must adopt a target of 350 ppm or 1.5 degrees C as the threshold for safe emissions. Right now atmospheric concentrations of CO2 stand at 387 parts per million, increasing by about 2 parts per million each year. We need a more fundamental and fast turn away from fossil fuel.

Here's what you can do right now to push for transformational change:

• Become a Climate Precinct Captain and take things into your own hands by organizing locally: local.1sky.org. 1Sky has developed an online tool to facilitate a constant offline drumbeat of action in every Congressional district across the country. Once you sign up for the tool, get at least ten neighbors and friends to get involved with the 1Sky campaign. E-mail [email protected] with questions.
• Join us at the largest climate convergence in history - Power Shift '09 -  or consider sponsoring someone else to attend. We need 10,000 people in Washington, D.C. screaming for change.
• Organize a 350 action for October 24, 2009 by signing on to 350.org and making sure that the world hears us loud and clear before next year’s Copenhagen summit.

As Betsy says, "This is not a time to just take advice from those of us in DC. It is time for every rabble rousing, child-loving, planet protecting person to get clear that we will not be okay unless we disrupt business as usual."

Green the city, get healthier kids

Sometimes when I give a talk, I'll say that if there is some Grand Designer or some Great Intelligence that creates the Universe, chances are that He, She or It did not create a system in which what was good for the planet would be bad for the people (unless that He, She or It had a very low IQ).

More than likely, I say, since the planet and people are interconnected, the Designer figured it so that what's good for the planet is also good for the people.

I rediscover this truth  over and over with environmental lifestyle adaptations. Biking, for example, is better for the planet than cars and turns out to keep people healthier, too (the bad news is that our culture is not built in a way that everyone can get where they need to go--like to work--by bike).

Anyway, some new support for the idea that what's good for the planet is also good for the people comes in this week from Indiana University. Greening the urban landscape, it turns out, improves children's health:

In the first study to look at the effect of neighborhood greenness on inner city children's weight over time, researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the University of Washington report that higher neighborhood greenness is associated with slower increases in children's body mass over a two-year period, regardless of residential density.

            

"Previous work, including our own, has provided snapshots in time and shown that for children in densely populated cities, the greener the neighborhood, the lower the risk of obesity," said Gilbert C. Liu, M.D., senior author of the new study, which appears in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. "Our new study of over 3,800 inner city children revealed that living in areas with green space has a long-term positive impact on children's weight, and thus, their health."

This follows, it turns out, because:

Trees and other urban vegetation improve aesthetics, reduce pollution and keep things cooler, making the outside a more attractive place to play, walk or run.

Meanwhile, more vegetation means more carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere, less storm water run off and its associated toxins into our water ways, the removal of diesel particulates from the air, and a reduced heat island effect, meaning less power used for air conditioning.

We help the planet, we help the kids. The point here is that spending money on environmental adaptations need not be the luxury of the elite. It can actually improve the lives of the underpriviledged.

Photo courtesy of NRDC's Switchboard.

An invitation to illegally occupy a coal power plant from Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry

Bill McKibben sent me this note over the weekend and asked me to share it with you. Thoughts? Plans to attend?

Dear Friends,

There are moments in a nation's—and a planet's—history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction. We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.

We will be there to make several points:

• Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost climatologist, NASA's James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level—below 350 parts per million co2—lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.
• Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an economic virtue.
• Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in "mountaintop removal" to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the rest of creation.
• Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of everything that breathes, including forests.

The industry claim that there is something called "clean coal" is, put simply, a lie. But it's a lie told with tens of millions of dollars, which we do not have. We have our bodies, and we are willing to use them to make our point. We don't come to such a step lightly. We have written and testified and organized politically to make this point for many years, and while in recent months there has been real progress against new coal-fired power plants, the daily business of providing half our electricity from coal continues unabated. It's time to make clear that we can't safely run this planet on coal at all.

So we feel the time has come to do more--we hear President Barack Obama's call for a movement for change that continues past election day, and we hear Nobel Laureate Al Gore's call for creative non-violence outside coal plants. As part of the international negotiations now underway on global warming, our nation will be asking China, India, and others to limit their use of coal in the future to help save the planet's atmosphere. This is a hard thing to ask, because it's their cheapest fuel. Part of our witness in March will be to say that we're willing to make some sacrifices ourselves, even if it's only a trip to the jail.

With any luck, this will be the largest such protest yet, large enough that it may provide a real spark. If you want to participate with us, you need to go through a short course of non-violence training. This will be, to the extent it depends on us, an entirely peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you. There will be young people, people from faith communities, people from the coal fields of Appalachia, and from the neighborhoods in Washington that get to breathe the smoke from the plant.

We will cross the legal boundary of the power plant, and we expect to be arrested. After that we have no certainty what will happen, but lawyers and such will be on hand. Our goal is not to shut the plant down for the day—it is but  one of many, and anyway its operation for a day is not the point. The worldwide daily reliance on coal is the danger; this is one small step to raise awareness of that ruinous habit and hence help to break it.

Needless to say, we're not handling the logistics of this day. All the credit goes to a variety of groups, especially the Energy Action Coalition (which is bringing thousands of young people to Washington that weekend), Greenpeace, the Ruckus Society, and the Rainforest Action Network. A website at that latter organization is serving as a temporary organizing hub: http://ran.org/get_involved/powershift_and_mass_civil_disobedience_updates/. If you go there, you will find a place to leave your name so that we'll know you want to join us.

Thank you,

Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben

Photo of Capital Power Plant courtesy of Daily Life.

Save a chimp as a sustainable Christmas gift

First off, Annie Leonard of Story of Stuff and I will be doing a live radio interview on KPFA's environmental radio show Terra Verde today (Friday). You can listen at 4:00 PM EST by clicking here (I'll post the link to the recording later). Onwards...

As long as we've been talking a little about a non-consumptive Christmas here on the blog, I thought I'd introduce the idea of sponsoring baby chimpanzees orphaned by the bush meat trade as a really neat charitable gift for a loved one. You can make someone a chimpanzee guardian as a Christmas present by clicking here.

Watch the video below and you'll be immediately sold on the idea.

According to The Jane Goodall Institute:

The Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center in the Republic of Congo—Africa’s largest chimpanzee sanctuary—provides orphaned chimpanzees with a loving, safe home. 

Poaching for the illegal, commercial bushmeat trade not only kills adult chimpanzees, it also harms baby chimps who are captured and sold into the illegal pet trade.

The lucky ones are confiscated from poachers and sellers by authorities.

That’s where the Jane Goodall Institute comes in.

At Tchimpounga Sanctuary, the Jane Goodall Institute gives traumatized orphan chimpanzees, who are often sick, malnourished and close to death, a second chance at life.

The chimpanzees at the Jane Goodall Institute’s Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center sleep in dormitories and have large areas of secured forest and grassland enclosures to roam by day. By exploring the natural habitat together, they develop the social skills necessary for their well-being.

Make someone a chimpanzee guardian as a Christmas present by clicking here.

Either way, watch this adorable video:

A Day in the Life: Chimpanzees at Tchimpounga Sanctuary from The Jane Goodall Institute on Vimeo.