Fortnite Creator is Buying Entire Forests to Prevent Them From Being Chopped Down

Tim Sweeney is a creator of the Fortnite game, which has become one of the biggest games of this decade. Working for decades this game managed to develop various interactive and intricate empires in the digital world for players.

He founded numerous Epic Games, and well-known Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, and Fortnite. Thanks to their popularity he soon became a billionaire. This condition hadn’t changed his attitude in his life about his humanity, so he has become even a bigger philanthropist. The area of his interest became protecting the beautiful Western Carolina Mountains.

In order to save its forest, in the last decade, he spent millions of dollars to support conservation projects in North Carolina. He donated money to various conservation parcel projects, like an expansion of 1,500 acres to Mount Mitchell State Park and bought 40,000 acres of land.

One of his biggest donations was in November 2016, when he donated $15 million for a conservation project, which aimed to protect 7,000 acres of the Box Creek Wilderness, located in the historic foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. This area was untouched, which attracted a large corporation to carve up the land and use it to run power lines to other places.

Additionally, by protecting this area, Sweeney protected hundreds of endangered animal and plant species.

Supporting his effort, the biologist Kevin Caldwell emphasized that ecologists documented several new-to‐science wildlife and plant species, and more than 130 rare and watch-list plant and wildlife species. There were registered three moths and a new spiderwort species.

Discussing this area Sweeney added:

“It’s one of the most diverse areas in North Carolina. It has such rare plant and wildlife species, it seemed a perfect fit with the Fish and Wildlife Service. This is the first step – there will be other places protected. The goal is to connect South Mountains State Park to Chimney Rock. This is one piece of the puzzle.”

Sweeney continued to buy land and a year later, he bought 193 acres in Alamance County for $1.973 million. When that land was secured, Jose Kellher, his representative, guaranteed that it would not be developed. The next his action was last year when he bought a 1,500-acre place called Stone Hills, which is protected from being turned into a golf resort community.

Explaining his steps of buying land, Sweeney, for that specific area he mentioned:

“I bought this land because it has a nice longleaf pine forest and was available for a reasonable price. I’ll be holding it until I find a permanent nature conservation home for it, which will take years or decades.”

His plan for this land is to hike it and do some tree thinning and burning for ecosystem restoration until he finds a permanent conservancy or state home for it.

According to the writings of the Mind Unleashed, Sweeney’s conservation efforts come at a time when protecting the nation’s forests has become increasingly important in this area. The study conducted in the North Carolina State University, which included 24 scientists led by professor Nick Haddad, found that there are only 2 truly intact forests left on Earth.

Examining the effects of human involvement on forests, authors found that habitat fragmentation leads to 13 to 75 percent decrease in plant and animal diversity. Additionally, it reduces the ability of animals and plants to survive and can even distort the food chain. That is extremely important for smaller patches of forest, which tend to have an increase in the predator population.

Science attempts to learn more about the importance of undeveloped forest land, which is truly supported by the billionaire philanthropists.

In 2015, Jack Ma, China’s wealthiest man has also taken note of the importance of conservation. He emphasized that the billionaire behind online retail giant Alibaba purchased 28,000 acres of land in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate NY. After buying the land, his first action was to halt logging operations.

The actions of this kind should be an inspiration for other people who have the power, needed wealth, and influence, to do good, to help the community, and save the environment.

Source: themindunleashed.com