You Can Now Help Save The Rainforest By Attending Your Favorite Music Festivals

My interview in Forbes today made the front page!

#dancefor1m #d41m #saverainforest

Dance music is made to be enjoyed as a group. From weekend long music festivals to hitting up the club to catch your favorite DJ's set, fans of the genre love to come out and support their artists. Between all these different shows, what if we told you there was a way to do good and save the environment along the way?

Thanks to Dance For 1 Meter, now you can. By attending an event partnered with the organization, you can help save the rainforest and stop deforestation. Every ticket goes towards preserving 1 square meter of jungle and as soon as they complete their purchase, customers will receive exact coordinates of the area they're saving. If you were going to see someone perform anyway, why not make a difference and have it become more meaningful?

H? Ibiza, which has worked with EDM sensations Martin Garrix and Armin van Buuren, are one of the event partners leading the way to ensure more and more of nature's finest is protected. To get a deeper look into the project and how the world's future is actually so much brighter because of it, I spoke with founder, Ricardo Porteus, who went into detail about how he and his partner, Tom Murray, make it all happen.

Isis Briones: What inspired you guys to take on the incredible challenge of attempting to save the rainforest? 

Ricardo Porteus: "My partner, Tom Murray, and I met at Burning Man a few years ago. We got into a discussion about the collective power events and festivals have, and how they unite huge numbers of individuals from different countries and social backgrounds.

I used to work in technology and marketing, specifically for music, so I'm well versed in the intricacies of how to scale online brands as well as plan for big events. Tom, on the other hand, has been dedicated to rainforest conservation for over a decade. As we progressed and explored opportunities over an 18-month period, the concept of Dance For 1 Meter (D41M) was born. It was made possible by a unique patented technology that allows us to lay a grid system over large tracts of land and convert it into an individual square meter with their own unique ID number." 

IB: How did you choose the rainforests you work with?  

RP: "Rainforest deforestation is a global issue. Every single one is under attack, predominantly from agriculture, logging, and mining corporations. Tom, Ron Dewhurst, and their networks purchased and saved large tracts of land on the Cuipo Rainforest Preserve in Brazil, which is D41M's initial focus. There, we can control the project, perform land surveys with trusted teams, and continue to support the great work they started.

In general, we also target areas that inherently have large-scale biodiversity and secondly, places where their loss will have the greatest impact on climate change. Cuipo is focused on large privately held lands that run the greatest risk of rights being sold to individuals or corporations for business strategies that will allow for total deforestation and destruction of lands leading to the complete loss of biodiversity."

IB: Do you have a favorite artist memory, in regards to the initiative, so far? 

RP: "I would have to split that equally between two different events, one being the opening night of H? club in Ibiza with Luciano. It was most anticipated event of the summer and the support that the owner, Yann Pissenem, and his team gave D41M was fantastic. 

On top of that, the HRBR Project on Governors Island in New York is one of the most impressive venues in the world. Eddie Dean, the founder, has created something truly mind-blowing. Seeing Ti?sto play to a sold-out crowd with the Manhattan skyline behind it was a highlight of the year and knowing D41M was a part of it was a fantastic feeling. We can't wait for what 2018 has in store for us!"

IB: That's amazing, can you reveal anything about the future events you have coming up? 

RP: "We are deeply into planning summer 2018 and have over 30 global festival partners in Croatia, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, and more. In total, we will live at over 2,000 individual events within the next 12 months. Next year will be huge. Plus, the more the events that join, the more land we can help save."

IB: It's awesome to see so many people rallying for the cause. What other plans does D41M have in furthering rainforest conservation?  

"We will further expand our conservation projects into Panama and Indonesia. We are in due diligence stage with potential partners in both areas and we expect this to happen late next year. As we scale, it's important that conservation groups and authorities can benefit from the D41M platform to directly impact environmental initiatives in their own home territories."