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I lived in Las Vegas from February 2015 to May 2016. I was far from the Strip in a suburb called Summerlin. Quite a nice suburb indeed. I wrote the PowerPoint "designed for the casinos" in order to convert my work on the tiny homes and the hardwood industry into a sustainable program. Sustainability has always been my goal and my expertise. In France, I was very active to market my work with architects, engineers, sawmills but also mayors, politicians, accountants, public administrations, schools and public organizations. My background as an ethnographer has always been my locomotive. I have been lucky enough to travel in Indonesia while it was still green with vast natural rainforests, orang hutans, tigers, elephants, birds, snakes, bugs, crocodiles, monkeys and millennial trees. I remember the song of the orang hutans in the morning, the mystery of the forest, the joy going through the forest even though it was hard. I remember days going back home full of dirt from feet to face, sodden like a sponge from the heavy rain of the monsoon, freezing, having a cold shower and eating lightly, but feeling full of all the memory from the day. In 1992, I never thought that the forest would disappear so fast.

I am here now, in the US and especially Hollywood where all the biggest stars of the world shine high and bright, and here more than anywhere else, I will never give up writing, explaining, lobbying, trying to convert my ideas into real projects. I did not have any chance in Las Vegas, but this is what happen to a lot of people in Vegas and anyway, I was not playing. Nothing about sustainability is a bet. Nothing about ecology is about luck or chance. Nothing about rainforest is a game. Nothing about the preservation of species is a gamble where we play a monkey with dices and a rhino with Black Jack. The real life is more fascinating than that and if big corporate companies want to play dirty with their luck then this is their own gamble.

Let me show you what I am talking about here :

THE RAINFOREST



All the videos above are from Sumatra, except the birds of Paradise whose only habitat is in New Guinea. Personally, I don't want to see all the beauty of this forest disappear but it's not only that. Personally, I don't want to see those species endangered by fears and chaos. I don't want to see them in zoos, I want them to stay in the wild even though that may mean that they are tamed to learn not to fear the human being. As long as they are comfortable, healthy and happy, capable to keep their natural habitat, I am not bothered with the idea that people go and see them. This is the way it has always been when human was still living in the forest. Animals have territories and will fight for their territories but they know to cohabit with other species such human. Territories are among a same species, but different species together are not in a competition. Different species together participate in the biodiversity with a natural selection that creates the inner character of each species, the way they hunt or the way they hide. The way they are social or not. The way they fade in nature or the way they show colors and sounds that contrast with their environment. Natural selection starts with gender, male and female fighting together but male and female also perpetuating the species into a natural order.

I know that I live in "my film" since 1992 and several things I have done or written might be like a page of algebra to people, so I have decided to comment my PowerPoint and explain it, slide after slide. My wish is to inspire and to provide the tools that will help save this nature so dear to me.

Slide 1 :

I was in Vegas, one of the most famous destination of the world for conferences, seminaries, meetings, trade shows. The casinos are one big activity of Vegas but the casinos would never survive with gambling. The gambling industry is one of the many entertainment activities of Vegas and people come in Vegas at first for business meetings. This city has made everything possible for small companies to feel big, anyone in the world feeling like a CEO, any gender feeling great and important. The all industry is welcoming anybody who comes for a simple weekend, a simple dinner, a simple show or a simple meeting and the all industry will make anything simple sounds like a VIP world.

I arrived in Vegas at night, around 1AM. I had made a reservation online for a black SUV. I had instead a long black limo with the chauffeur coming in the airport to pick me up and my luggage the flags up calling my name as if an international organization had been planning my arrival for weeks. The reservation took me about 1/2 hour and I paid $120 the all service. I had made a reservation for one week in the Hilton. A condo with one bedroom, one kitchen, one living room and after I had installed my office in the living room, I decided to stay the full month. I still consider the Hilton like a home, quiet, full of services and especially, business class services.

This is the way Vegas is, but with all the hotels and restaurants, you can expect a lot of waste and junk what would mean also sustainability programs. Hotels have sustainability programs. Very shy sustainability programs, more of the kind "bling bling" than real effectiveness but it was really interesting for me to have the time to study all that, read the local newspapers and through my search for a job, try to document my case. There are few sustainability manager position that I was trying to showcase in my book and I have learned a lot about Vegas, especially the way I could innovate in this city. So I start my PowerPoint with a statement, Las Vegas is number 2, it is not number 1.

Las Vegas is not number 1 for green meetings. I have got my source from Greenbiz.com, and this, I was expecting any casinos in Vegas to understand my point. Vegas shall be number one and to be number one, the city shall lead with examples.

Slide 2 : 

Second statement, US pension funds do not make money on the US forest because China and Japan are controlling the prices on the US hardwood industry. When I arrived in Vegas, I made an appointment with Berlyn Miller trying to get some help from a local insider and access local contacts. Berlyn did not have contact with sustainability managers but he paid my ticket to the IWPA wood conference. This, I will always be grateful because I have learned everything I know about the US forest industry while attending this conference. I remember a sawmill owner telling me that it cost him less money to import rather than buy South American woods. I remember the Director of an Hardwood association presenting his industry and the "hopes" to sell hardwood to China.

This was the beginning of the love affair between Vegas and Macau. Most casinos in Vegas had put money in Macau to build hotels and casinos. They were in debt and juggling to get the Chinese government cooperating in Macau. There was in reality little chance to get the casinos on my side, but while making my point about Vegas number two, I was expecting the directors of the casinos to understand that at some point, they could become number 3 and 4 because they were behind the rest of the world. Following China, and putting all the money there was not a bright idea because China would use the debt to influence on green technologies and the green technologies of China are environmentally not friendly. Wind energy use components that only rare earth can provide and rare earth is mostly known and extracted from the rainforest. An extraction made by China means also concessions given to China rather than concessions given to America or European countries. At some point, we would face a clash of civilization that we were already losing and we were losing because we have been acting bad. Colonialism was bad. Slavery was bad and our modern industry has inherited from bad habits that are hard to change.

Slide 3 : 

Statement n°3, the broadleaf forest is a financial product. We find rainforest around the equator and the tropics. Northern of the tropics, we find the broadleaf forest which in size is much as big as the rainforest. The rainforest is over exploited by international companies who convert the forest in low cost products. The main purpose of converting the rainforest into low cost products is to access the land and convert the soil into rare earth. 


The next video is an interview of Patrick Buffet. You can use the subtitles on Youtube with the translation into english. This is the description of the video provided by XERFI on Youtube:
Rare earths - these metals with little substitutable properties found in electric motors, catalytic converters or magnets for wind turbines - are at the heart of the conflict between China and Western countries. This leads to soaring prices of metals. During his interview with Jean-Michel Quatrepoint, Patrick Buffet, the CEO of Eramet, has advanced several explanations and suggested some tracks:
- The Chinese monopoly on rare earths has been facilitated by the closure of many deposits in the world because of the difficulties to produce these metals and a short-term vision of the countries;
- The explosion of global demand for metals and alloys combined with the lack of investment by mining groups has pushed prices up, even as the costs of R & D to find new deposits will increase;
- The existence of only six serious projects in the world on light rare earths raises the question of a shortage of heavy rare earths;
- The need to rebuild integrated networks of rare earths around the world, like Eramet's joint project with Areva and Rhodia on the Mabounié deposit in Gabon, destined to become one of the three world leaders in the world. horizon 2020;
- Eramet's flotation deficit prevents Gabon and other investors from entering the capital of the French group, but also from the mining group to integrate the CAC 40 index, unless Areva's stake evolves. ..



On minute 4:15, Parick Buffet explains how the principal mining company in the world, Mountain Pass, located in California, stopped the production of rare earth in the competition with China.

This is the detail given on Wikipedia:
Since 2007, China has restricted exports of REEs and imposed export tariffs, both to conserve resources and to give preference to Chinese manufacturers. In 2009, China supplied more than 96% of the world's REEs. Some outside China are concerned that because rare earths are essential to some high-tech, renewable-energy, and defense-related technologies, the world should not be so reliant on a single supplier country.
On September 22, 2010, China quietly enacted a ban on exports of rare earths to Japan, a move suspected to be in retaliation for the Japanese arrest of a Chinese trawler captain in a territorial dispute. Because Japan and China are the only current sources for rare-earth magnetic material used in the US, a permanent disruption of Chinese rare-earth supply to Japan would leave China as the sole source. Jeff Green, a rare-earth lobbyist, said, "We are going to be 100 percent reliant on the Chinese to make the components for the defense supply chain." The House Committee on Science and Technology scheduled on September 23, 2010, the review of a detailed bill to subsidize the revival of the American rare-earths industry, including the reopening of the Mountain Pass mine.

All this competition with China was made with bad politics by the past that continued into the bad politics of the modern industry and if bad politics continue, then countries such emerging countries have everything to win precisely because Western countries did not leave them anything to loose. And the winner now is China.


Forest is an asset as a territory, as wood, as an industry for the wood and by products and as a land for the agriculture and the mining companies. This is also an asset for voters and the lobby of smaller companies who compete on the wrong scale. Small companies in Western countries are using green marketing to sell their services and products while green marketing, as it is made just now, is precisely what gives more power to China. The West is trapped into a circle where friends become even competitors such Canada selling softwoods to the US increasing US deficit or Germany importing softwood in France. There is an evident imbalance that happened with the lack of a good governance. I invite you to read my posts about:
On minute 9:00, Jean-Michel Quatrepoint says (Click on the text to see the translation) "La stratégie des Chinois, c'est clair, c'est "je garde la matière première pour moi, non seulement je fabrique les sous-ensemble, mais à la limite, je ne vous vendrai même pas les batteries des futures voitures hybrides, je vous vendrai des voitures hybrides".

Patrick Buffet responds : "c'est de l'intégration aval, et le maximum de valeur ajoutée locale. Alors qu'est-ce qu'ils font? Ils combattent la production pirate, je rappelle que la production mondiale de terres rares c'est 120 mille tonnes, bon il y a à peu près 10% de cette production qui est considérée une production pirate en Chine (..) donc ils sont en train de contrôler tout cela, de mieux rationaliser et ensuite ils développent tout l'aval soit par des partenariats locaux, Rhodia a fait un partenariat en Chine d'ailleurs, de transformation aval et de création de valeur ajoutée locale, c'est ça qu'ils cherchent (...) ils essayent aussi de faire venir toute la high tech possible localement chez eux. Donc nous devons absoluement être indépendants par trois voix: premièrement le recyclage. Dans les métaux, si vous multipliez la capacité de recyclage de 40% à 80%, vous multipliez les réserves par 4, par 5 (...) les métaux sont recyclables à l'infini. Deuxièmement, vous devez limiter l'utilisation des terres rares, les nanotechnologies ouvrent des possibilités dans ce domaine là. Troisièmement, il faut chercher de nouveaux gisements de terres rares."


===>>> "we have to relaunch exploration, we need a European geological inventory (...) have we looked if whether we had rare earths in Europe in a serious way, at European level I mean."

A European asked the question, a French precisely, but could an American ask the same question ? Before I continue with forestry, I would like to compare the mining experience with Oil in Saudi Arabia. While most Americans seam to not love their oil companies, the United-States were the first country to give an honest retribution for the Saudi Arabian oil while England and France were in a competition to steal the oil from Iraq and from Iran. In facts, Americans don't like the oil companies because of their monopoly experience with Rockefeller, but this experience has created smaller companies that shape the modern US economy. In Saudi Arabia, on February 14, 1945 President Roosevelt made an agreement, the Quincy Agreement, between the United-States and Saudi Arabia. This agreement would bring wealth and modernity in the Middle East. This was the end of colonialism for this part of the Middle East.
From 14 February, President Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia met aboard Quincy. During the meeting, President Roosevelt tried to persuade Saud to give support for Jewish immigration to Palestine, and hoped that Ibn Saud might be able to offer constructive advice on the Palestine issue. There, Roosevelt and Saud concluded a secret agreement in which the U.S. would provide Saudi Arabia military security – military assistance, training and a military base at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia – in exchange for secure access to supplies of oil.

In honor of the meeting between Saudi's King Abdul Aziz and Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard Quincy, the official residence of the American ambassador to Saudi Arabia is named Quincy House, and is located on the Diplomatic Quarter in Riyadh. In 1995, to commemorate 50 years since the meeting occurred, then-U.S. Ambassador Ray Mabus unveiled a detailed model of the meeting on Quincy, paid for with private donations, and this model is still on display today at Quincy House.



On my two pages about the the economy of wood and the politics of wood, I largely comment the  negative balance of the hardwood industry both in the United-States and Europe. I also show the similarities between the wood industry and the rare earth industry. Both have become a weapon against the US and European interests.

The very few pension funds who still invest in forestry are loosing money unless the economy of forest is converted into other products than wood. The economy of the forest is managed for hunting or, as it is mainly the case in Brazil and Indonesia, the forest is converted into agricultural land what creates a revenue, but the forest is no more a forest. 

Just to give you an idea of the vast market of the pension funds, this is a list of pension funds for the police... in Illinois: http://ippfa.org/membership/pension-fund-members/

Pension funds are almost the only way of retirement in the US but pension funds on forestry are working to destroy the environment and transfer to the next generations the chaos they are financing today with a poor management on both sides of the story, the pension funds who don't know their products and the forestry who never had any vast politic and sustainable training.

Some pension funds are losing money on forestry:
Some others are now diverting their activities to stop supporting deforestation:
The time when pension funds make money on forestry has not yet arrived which is bad, but it is also a big opportunity to investors because this is a "new market" on a "green wave" with substantial knowledge we have from the past and huge ability to progress, design, develop and innovate.

Forest owned in the US by financial investors


Slide 4:

The 4th slide introduces the prototype I describe on the Fire Resistant Houses project.

Slide 5:

On slide 5, I ask the casinos to take a bet of $32,000 to buy a communication program, which program is "Sustainable Program to Develop the Hardwood Industry".

This program targets a public that we can find only in Vegas with all the diversity, services and networks that this city can offer, but after 2.5 years to market the project and sell houses in Future State of Completion, the $32,000 become $615,465,844 profits. To reach this goal, the project targets 14.39% of the US construction market with a "green technology". To generate that much profits in so little time, we create a financial product especially designed for the investors.

Slide 6:

When I built my prototype in France, I could only achieve this project with a lot of communication and especially press releases, radio interviews, TV documentaries in the news, concourses and the press releases from the concourses plus a large activity with local politics and administrations. I have traveled all over France to hunt my products, find the good partners, identify the niche that no other industry would take, and create the technologies to exploit and develop the niche. I had several years experience that would be difficult to start over in the US, so instead of starting over, I was using Las Vegas as a platform to attract my 4 targets in "the net" if I may say. With meetings, round tables, seminaries and the visibility that Vegas can offer, I was  converting my experience to create in the US the dynamics that technical and financial innovation could bring.

The initial investment of $32,000 was paying the organization of 5 days meeting in Vegas. At the end of the 5 days meeting, the goal was to sell 10 houses using the hardwood technologies I describe on the Fire Resistant Houses project. The millions we make after 2.5 years use the Tiny Homes program.

Since everything is about "communication" and "initial investments", the $32,000 would start the publication of a journal (a large documented press release) to lobby, inform and mostly, to train the pension funds and bring them into the creation of new investment tools. The idea was to present the financial products to investors, accountants, financial experts, bankers, pension funds managers and bring every each of them to comment and advise. With the diversity of those comments and advises, we would lobby the politics, the pension funds and the customers who would buy the retirement programs. We would also lobby the people who are buying the houses, real estate agencies, developers, mayors, governors, communities, charities, groups, anybody who would have at heart to take part into the sustainability project. Instead of collecting funds for nothing, the idea was to collect funds for something as large as possible. One house for a veteran, for example, would create jobs in the US forest and preserve biodiversity both in the braodleaf forest and the rainforest. The idea was wide as can be.

Slide 7:

The $32,000 initial investment is money that the investor get back with the 10 houses sold on the 5 days meeting but to start the project on a very strong basis, the program is raising $125,000 from sponsors. This money given and non refundable is meant to create an exhibit about forestry. On slide 7, I describe the content and the detail of the costs of this exhibit.

Slide 8:

Slide 8 describes how $32,000 are spent during 6 months to create the 5 days meeting, the exhibit and the journal.

Slide 9:

Side 9 explains how to take 14.39% of the construction market in the US using Las Vegas as a showcase.

Slides 10, 11 & 12:

Three slides to explain the background of the prototype I have built in France.

Slide 13:

The green movements in France, with the help of agricultural agencies, were having a radical position on insulation technologies. They completely banned mineral wool for their projects which I believe was a really bad choice and a non sense so I have used Rockwool to build my prototype and we made all the engineering using Rockwool products. The insulation shown exceptional insulation results and we could reach a high thermal efficiency that explain the denomination of Fire Resistant Houses.



Using Rockwool brings the configuration of the mining companies we saw with slide 3. Most people stay mute and blind on mining activities abroad but they don't want it locally at home. Children can die in Indonesia to produce nickel but Western children may not on insulation industries.

The real problem I believe, is not about mining or not mining, people would be happy about creating jobs, but the mining companies have inherited from very old master/slave practices who do not fit in a modern society. There is a huge amount of investment that shall be done to assist those companies in better quality production and most this investment is about innovation, how to produce cleaner and safer. So I could not talk about Rockwool without talking about anti-Rockwool and this is a playlist of videos and debates. The debate in fact is more a planning concerns than real environmental discussion.



Slide 14:

On slide 14, I explain the financial approach of the prototype of the Fire Resistant Houses project. A house of 2,296 sqf, sold $119/sqf , raises a fund of $4,374 for the broadleaf forest and $6,000 for the rainforest. This is 5.89 hectares of rainforest saved with the construction of one house. The budget to build one house uses 1/3 of the budget in engineering, what means high qualification jobs. One house uses 36.11% of oak, what increases the resistance of the house against fire and creates new revenues for the hardwood industry.

Slide 15:

If we increase the cost of the house to $159/sqf, we can reach higher standards, but this budget helps also to raise an extra $3,000 money for the broadleaf forest and $12,000 for the rainforest. This amount of money can save 17.67 hectares of rainforest.

To save the entire rainforest with preservation programs, we need to build

  • 61,836 houses/year sold $159/sqf = 4.79% of the US construction market
  • or 185,509 houses/year sold $119/sqf = 14.39% of the US construction market

If you remember earlier on slide 3, the title of the video was "The Strategic Metals War", so I would like to explain a little bit here about my strategy.

  • Problem = Environmental NGO who actually protect species with preservation programs, parks, nurseries, guards, lands that they own and manage usually don't have a regular revenue. They have to work with the generosity of a public who has become saturated with programs and especially, deception programs.
    Solution = with taking a part of a market and writing the preservation program in the business plan of the project, we create an annual revenue that we are able to repeat and increase every year to manage long term projects and have a real positive impact. To have a positive impact, we must influence the pension funds, the wood industry, the rare earth industry, the agricultural industry, what mean making partnerships with local governments to assist them in their governance and regulate the use of the natural environment to impose quotas, technologies, limitations, conditions, controls. The use of the environment shall be controlled as much as the nuclear industry is controlled to make sure that no country can escape the international laws. ===>>> Instead of having a deficit on the US hardwood industry, we generate a large amount of money to empower the way we impact in the US and outside of the US.
  • Problem = NGO are non governmental while the problems come from a lack of good governance. We cannot correct a bad governance with no governance and anarchy. 
    Solution = The only way to correct a bad governance is to assist the countries to get a better governance for their land, their people and their resources. We can assist those countries with more engineers, with trainings, with material support. We could learn from the experience of the oil industry because the partnership between the US and Saudi Arabia was a success that leaded other countries of the Middle East to develop and participate in the social progress of the world.
  • 61,836 houses/year sold $159/sqf = $273,624,300 / year = 4.79% of the market
  • 185,509 houses/year sold $119/sqf = $615,147,844 / year = 14.39% of the market
The lowest price we build houses opens a larger market on social high quality green housing that most constructors don't have. With this sector of the construction market, we generate more money because we build more houses to reach our goals.

Slide 16:

This slide shows some plans that you will find also on the Fire Resistant Houses project.

Slide 17:

The knowledge we develop in the US can be exported outside of the US, what mean that we become capable to produce a high quality product made in the USA from raw materials grown in the USA. We can also export the engineering, the management, the hardware, and derivative products that will increase the trade balance of the hardwood industry.

The wood construction market in France is 12% of the global construction market, what mean only 14,320 houses each year. So little it is, exporting technologies is a way to influence and to weight in the directions of a country and especially in Eastern Europe where the broadleaf forest is targeted by networks of mobs that follow an agenda way more aggressive than Western Europe. It is also a way to disturb the monopoly of China and get more influence on their foreign policies.

Slide 18:

Slide 18, I show how stupid has become the situation in France. Since forest owners cannot generate a revenue on their wood, they over-exploit the forest for hunting on a level of 8.5 hunters/ deer in France.

Slide 19:

I show on a map what $119/sqf represent compared with all the states of the United-States. If we apply the Tiny Homes program at the scale of 14.39% of the US market to use 36.11% hardwood in new buildings, we could auto-finance social housing.

Slides 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 & 26:

I break the costs to explain how the program works. You can find more details on



Slide 27:

Last slide, I show what the planet would be without a good politic on forestry. Nevada is a perfect example of what a real desert looks like, days and nights. The question is:

Is this the kind of world that retired people
want to leave for their grand children?




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