Pioneer in Biodiversity Conservation and Carbon Sequestration

MY IMPACT

Jonathan Baillie is the President and Chair of the Board of Natural State, an organization committed to working with local communities, industries, governments, and conservation leaders to help protect, restore, and rewild large landscapes to improve climate conditions.

MY JOURNEY

Jonathan and his team use the latest AI, cellular technology, and remote sensing technology to make nature-based solutions investments a reality. This type of technology is useful, since baseline data about climate and landscapes in remote areas is often missing. Jonathan’s goal is to make these AI tools accessible to everyone, so that organizations can understand their biodiversity and carbon impacts and offset those impacts through biodiversity conservation and growth.

What most excites Jonathan about the work that Natural State is doing is the massive potential to protect and restore the natural world that has been damaged by pollution, excessive carbon emissions, and degradation. Unfortunately, we have now degraded 75% of the world’s natural ecosystems and are losing an area of forest the size of Greece each year. To avoid the greatest climate and extinction crisis in human history, we must halt habitat destruction and rapidly accelerate protection, restoration and rewilding efforts globally.

Jonathan recommends that younger people start their own social and environmental impact organizations sooner and approach their work with fearlessness and leadership. Jonathan is inspired by young explorers who are taking climate action.

In particular, he draws inspiration from winners of the Earthshot Prize, who are working to protect and restore nature, clean our air, revive our oceans, build a waste-free world, and fix our climate.