14 DAY TRIAL // Gemma Arterton, the former Bond Girl, is keen on displaying an eco-friendly attitude. After returning from a from a six-day eventful journey to the remote Amazon with Sky Rainforest Rescue jungle, an eco-conscious organization, she wants to tell the story of the endangered ecosystems and their poor inhabitants.
Instead of spreading perfume and glitter on the red carpet, Arterton hopes to raise the people's level of awareness regarding the importance of environmental preservation measures, especially for those regions whose balance is permanently disrupted by a series of natural and man-made factors.
“Being in the thick of things in Brazil makes you rethink what you do have and what you can change,” Gemma reported, according to Daily Mail. She traveled on three planes and committed to her new role as a volunteer. After her life-changing experience in the Amazon, Gemma can definitely reevaluate her lifestyle and her daily choices; therefore, using a bike to reach a certain destination suddenly becomes a very appealing option in her case.
While witnessing poverty correlated with the dramatic environmental changes, the facts appear even more alarming. A surface of Amazon rainforest the size of three football pitches disappears every minute, since deforestation appears to be the best option to make room for new roads and buildings in the middle of nature.
Sky Rainforest Rescue, the organization that captured Gemma's interest thinks it can save up to one billion trees by offering financial support to local communities.
This initiative is developed in partnership with local governments. The main idea is to back local communities so that they don't need to rely only on the money coming from wood-chopping activities. A significant investment is meant to keep the tree population under control while also allowing natives to put food on the table on a daily basis.
“They are poor, so they have to chop down trees. It would be very narrow-minded of us to deny them the right to make money, or to have access to a decent road, so it’s about compromise,” Gemma declared for the Daily Mail.
She was extremely surprised when she found out that it takes three days to get to the nearest hospital during rainy seasons and some of the local people have to walk for five hours every day to get to their jobs as rubber tappers.