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Renat Heuberger, CEO of Terra Impact Ventures and author of The Carbon Paradox, joins host Shauna Matkovich to explore why the forest carbon market is both vital and fiercely debated. He unpacks key paradoxes — from the “baseline” paradox that rewards past deforestation to the “leakage,” “control,” and “transparency” paradoxes that trap project developers between local realities, investor demands, and media scrutiny.
Heuberger reflects on his exit from South Pole, the damage caused by polarised climate debates, and why scrapping REDD+ would mean abandoning the only proven tool to protect forests still disappearing today. Through his fiction-based narrative, he aims to reach readers outside the carbon bubble — including his 80-year-old mother — and believes the next wave of forest-climate leadership will come from students and founders ready to reshape the story.
His message to investors: now is the moment to “buy the dip” in forest carbon — for those patient enough to ride out the noise.
That’s already the first paradox we describe, right? Is it ethically correct to put a price on nature, to call forests an asset? … At the same time, if you are not giving a price to nature, then in a way its price is zero. And that’s already the first fundamental debate which has been going on in carbon markets for several years
0:00 Intro – Welcome to Forest Invest
0:19 Guest intro – Renat Heuberger, Terra Impact Ventures & The Carbon Paradox
1:18 Origins – First encounters with deforestation in Indonesia
2:25 Building South Pole and early carbon-market journey
4:43 The first paradox – Putting a price on nature
6:11 Why write a fiction-based book about carbon markets
7:42 Writing for readers outside the climate bubble
9:40 The power of storytelling over white papers
10:40 Key paradoxes – Baseline, Leakage, Community
16:00 The Control Paradox – Who really decides how forest funds are used
22:31 The Ideologists Paradox – Attacks from left and right
25:19 The Transparency Paradox – When openness invites criticism
27:14 Meet the protagonists – Three students on a climate mission
29:25 Reconciling forests as moral duty vs market asset
33:04 New ideas – Pricing nature, not just carbon
35:17 Political cycles, slow progress, and REDD+ lessons
37:24 Rebirth of the Dream – Why narrative change matters
39:30 Raising a questioning generation
41:34 Leaving South Pole – What really happened
45:25 Silver linings and new beginnings
47:03 Who should read The Carbon Paradox – Greta Thunberg & President Prabowo
49:50 Message to project developers – Hang in there
51:23 Investor takeaway – “Buy the dip” in forest carbon
53:00 Where to find the book & Renat’s work
Founding Director/Host: Shauna Matkovich - The ForestLink
Producer/Editor: Magdalena Laas - Unscripted Creatives
Nature by MaxKoMusic/Soundcloud
Sopwell Woodlands and Scohaboy Bog SAC, Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary, IRELAND by wild_rumpus/Soundcloud
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