Yak Magazine - Eco Edition

The Yak Magazine - Bali’s Luxury magazine featured our team in its 62 volume, focused on highlighting the eco-warriors and leaders of environmental change. In this issue they interview our visionary, Alex Joy on how Rainforest Pavilion came to be, as well as his goals for his passion project.

If you attended any of the last three Wonderfruit festivals, you may have come across Rainforest Pavilion, a brilliant arts and entertainment platform that aims to make saving our rainforests fun and sexy by combining music, art, and dialogue in one immersive space.

This year the Rainforest Pavilion brought together DJs and performers from around the world, ecological speakers from the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), vendors, artists, and scientists to celebrate rainforests and raise awareness about their destruction. They also raised enough funds to purchase 404 hectares of rainforest in Kalimantan for conservation through Rainforest Trust.

We caught up with Rainforest Pavilion founder Alex Joy to find out more about this unique platform and the issues that are most important to them.

Alex, how did you get involved in eco-activism and rainforest conservation in particular?

I was brought up with rainforest conservation. My father was very active in battles to save the temperate rainforests around Victoria, British Columbia, where I grew up. My parents also brought me to live in the rainforests of Sarawak when I was about six. The whole family went on long treks and lived with the Dayak people, who shared their ways of dance, hunting, art and thriving in the forest. So I developed a deep appreciation for forests from a young age.

How did Joy Collective and the Rainforest Pavilion come about?

Founded in 2016, Joy Collective came about when I realised what an interesting network of people I knew and how if I could unify people from different sectors and industries towards common causes we could really have an impact. Rainforest Pavilion grew out of this and is the first project of Joy Collective.

When I first experienced Wonderfruit festival and learned about their ethos, I was eager to get involved in something in the music industry that went beyond just the good times. I pitched the Rainforest Pavilion concept and the festival curator and founders liked it. Then I actually had to pull it off, so I shared the idea with my Bali fam, Halim and Tina Ardie. They also loved the concept and threw themselves at it fully. Now it’s three years later and we’re still growing. The process has brought me together with so many interesting, dedicated people. It’s a really good feeling when something grows organically in an industry that has become almost overwhelmingly about hype.

Click here for more from this interview…