to the Eyes of a Man of Imagination,”
Nature is Imagination itself.
About us
- Our mission
- Forest ecosystems under threat
- Who are we?
- Why 'Ginkgo'?
- Why music?
- Why protect forests?
- Our focus is biodiversity
Our mission
To halt deforestation by 2015 and protect the biodiversity of ancient forest habitats forever, involving musicians and ecologists in a global team raising money and public understanding.
back to topForest ecosystems under threat
Ancient forests, home to most of the planet's 800 million plant and animal species, are disappearing at an alarming rate. Once gone, they're gone forever - primaeval or 'old-growth' forest habitats can never be recreated because they are so complex, and still mostly unknown.
back to topWho are we?
Ginkgo Music is a not-for-profit organisation set up by a group of people from various backgrounds, including biology, music, art and design, sport, charity and business. We share a passion: the extraordinary and colourful range of life inhabiting this planet.
back to topWhy 'Ginkgo'?
As the oldest tree species on Earth, the ginkgo tree represents the survival of a plant species against all odds. Its fan shaped leaves first unfurled over 200 million years ago, before dinosaurs and flowering plants appeared, and it's still here.
back to topWhy music?
Songs speak to people and nations at a deep level. The poet Shelley said "poets are the unacknowleged legislators of the world". We believe that music, art and poetry can bring us back to the magic of the world in which we live. We ask how music can inspire people of every nation to care about the uniqueness, rarity and sheer dazzling beauty of the natural environment.
back to topWhy protect forests?
There are practical reasons for protecting the world's ancient forests. Forests are a carbon sink and deforestation is now known to be the prime contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, so stopping deforestation is priority number one in the battle against global warming. New wonder crops to feed the world, and the next miracle cure for disease, may be found deep in the unexplored forests we are currently destroying.
That's all true. But it's not why we created Ginkgo Music.
back to topOur focus is biodiversity
Increasingly people are recognising the rights of other species to share this planet with us, and recognising the natural world as a community of which we are part rather than a group of objects to be exploited.
Many of the social and economic problems we are experiencing result from a profound disconnection from the Earth community of which we are part: none of the other 800 million species on this planet experience poverty or scarcity. For a life worth living people need the mystery, awe, education and enchantment they find in the richness of the natural world. To paraphrase Thomas Berry, we are beginning to recognise that the devastation of forests, the extinction of species and the blocking out of our vision of the stars is "something more than damage to our physical being", it is also "soul-damage", a ruin within, degrading to our imagination, our emotional life, and our intellectual life, for all these are activated by our experience of the outer world.
That's why we reject living on a barren concrete planet where everything is known and humans tread everywhere.
We stand for the grandeur of a planet where gorillas can live in safety and without interference, and every last iridescent dragonfly, hummingbird and bird of paradise continues to hum, hover and dance. Humanity is just waking up to the fact that respect for ecology and respect for each other are two sides of the same coin, and in this lies our hope for the future.
back to top"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the Eyes of a Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself."