Chuck Leavell, Rolling Stones Keyboardist, has become an outspoken proponent of sound forestry management. He’s got a tree plantation, Charlane Plantation, near Macon, GA. He just played for a UN biodiversity convention in Germany and is touring there with the German Forest Owners Association. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with Chuck and I like how he’s trying to pull together activists and businessmen like himself.

The German organization supplied us with some audio.

Listen to Chuck here: chuck-leavell.mp3

“Use it or lose it” – that’s the credo of Rolling Stones keyboardist and forest owner Chuck Leavell, who has been promoting sustainable forest management around the globe for years. The musician will convey his belief that only sustainably managed forests maintain biodiversity to the delegates of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity at a concert on 18 May 2008 in Bonn, Germany. He supports the German Forest Owners Association (AGDW). This organisation has been driving the integration of the protection of species and habitats in sustainable forest management for years. By now, there is no forest in Germany that is not managed according to the principles of sustainability which makes wood from Germany an environment-friendly resource.

The objective of Chuck Leavell’s global commitment is to reconcile environmentalists and forest owners. He is convinced that both parties are actually trying to achieve the same aim: to maintain and protect the natural diversity of species and ecosystems. Chuck Leavell explains the forest owner’s point of view: “I think it is important for all of us to realize the true diversity we have in our different forest systems, whether it is in Germany or in America or in Canada. If we begin to loose just one or some of the many different insect species, animal species and plant species then we’re taking things out of balance and I think we’re in danger loosing the system itself. So it is important to do all we can to maintain this wonderful diversity in our forests.”