My Humble Opinion on Solving Deforestation

I think we should learn to trace each product we consume. Had the product derived from unmindfully deforestation practice, we should stop consuming the product and find for its subtitute. If a lot of people do this altogether, that would lessen demands to the product and stop the production. The business owners would think of other ways to fulfill society's demand on environmentally-friendly products. That's just how business works in terms of flexibility. We as consumers are the ones who must decide for ourselves and rule the market. It is one's responsibility to educate oneself to being smart. I would say that we should not necessarily blame the government and the capitalists. We should just start from ourselves because it's much greater responsibility to change our own attitude than others' way of thinking. We should educate ourself to be a mindful consumer.

The least I can do to put this statement into practice is by living minimalist style. I am learning to be grateful for what I already have by thinking of what advantages I can take of them both for my own self and other people.

If I feel a need of something, I am training my mind to think first if I can find the substitute at home rather than buying new. If I need it new, I will look for the free way. If I can't get it free, then it's okay to spend some money. But if I don't have any money, I think again that maybe I just don't really need the stuff and find other things to occupy.

It actually doesn't always come easy and worries are always there.

Anyway, that's the challenge. I have read that some people manage to live without money due to their concerns of environmental, societal, etc-al problems. Thus they choose to live "poor" and they are happy with it because they know what they do will contribute to greater benefits. And by not making money doesn't mean that they are just being lazy around. Instead, they do things for the sake of giving without hoping for any profit nor reward, or, in other words, they just practice "the gift economy". That's what we lack of in this world where most people think that everything must be about money and such mentality lets evils happen, I guess.

Deforestation itself shoos indigenous people away from the forest which is their home, where they can gather food without paying a single dime. They just need to take care of the forest. Yet, when they get "civilized" by the government and the coal/palm/any industries, the forest is gone, food and other stuffs are no longer free to get, and that's just terrible. In ancient age, people would kill each other for food and that happens until now yet slowly. What growth that we as humans actually have reached?