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A young Scott Poynton tunes in to a science show on trees
“The show was with Richard St. Barbe Baker, the most famous forester in the world and I was captivated. He used poetry, science art,” Scott explains. “I’d just turned 15 and I sat there for the half hour of his speech and by the end of it I was going to be a forester and there was nothing more to it.”
Scott Poynton founds The Tropical Forest Trust
Years later in 1999, a report by Global Witness (‘Made in Vietnam, Cut in Cambodia’) hit the headlines and unveiled that Europe’s garden furniture was made at the cost of Cambodia’s rainforests. Shortly after, Scott Poynton brought the The Tropical Forest Trust to life with the mission to change this situation.
The idea was simple. To use the controversy created by the ‘Made in Vietnam, Cut in Cambodia’ report as a platform to work with companies and get them to change their ways. It’s a method that’s stuck: working in that difficult place between the companies and NGOs to bring about transformation.
TFT’s first employee works out of an industrial site in England
Bjorn Roberts, our first full-time employee worked out of a small office in an industrial site in Kidlington, near Oxford in England. “We didn’t have a website or any of that, we just wanted to turn this harmful garden furniture into something more sustainable,” he recalls.