Forests, Fame & the Fight Against Deforestation with Aaron Elton

Summary

Living The Red Life Podcast: Episode Summary Title: Forests, Fame & the Fight Against Deforestation with Aaron Elton
Host: Rudy Mawer (Rudy Moore)
Guest: Aaron Elton
Release Date: July 28, 2025

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I. Introduction

In this compelling episode of Living The Red Life, host Rudy Mawer engages in a profound conversation with Aaron Elton, a visionary entrepreneur dedicated to combating deforestation through sustainable business practices. The discussion delves into Aaron’s transformative journey from a cinematographer to an environmental activist, highlighting the urgent need to address global deforestation and its cascading effects on ecosystems and human communities.

II. Aaron Elton's Journey

a. Early Career and Exposure to Uganda Aaron Elton begins by recounting his early career as a cinematographer, producing hip-hop music videos in Uganda under the name Lugaflo. “[00:00] Aaron Elton: The forests of our world represent over 80% of the genome on land...”, he emphasizes how his four-year stint in Uganda exposed him to the country’s stark contrasts—ranging from significant wealth disparities to the breathtaking natural beauty. This period was pivotal, as Aaron witnessed firsthand the acute poverty and environmental degradation affecting rural communities.

b. Academic Background and Social Concerns With a background in anthropology, archaeology, and criminology, Aaron was deeply concerned about the pervasive poverty and social issues he observed. His role as a youth counselor further fueled his commitment to understanding and mitigating the challenges faced by vulnerable populations in Africa.

III. Recognizing the Deforestation Crisis

a. Insights from the NEMA Report A turning point in Aaron’s journey was encountering the 2008 National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) report, which ominously predicted the loss of Uganda’s high canopy jungle by 2050. “[05:00] Aaron Elton: Uganda will have no more high canopy jungle by 2050, meaning that it was deforesting…”, Aaron highlights the critical role forests play in supplying energy (93% through firewood and charcoal) and sustaining agricultural productivity amidst a rapidly growing population.

b. Impact on Ecosystems and Communities Aaron underscores the dire consequences of deforestation, including soil erosion, decreased agricultural yields, and exacerbated malnutrition. He stresses that without intervention, these issues will only intensify, threatening both environmental and human well-being.

IV. Transition to Environmental Entrepreneurship

a. From Cinematography to Sustainable Design Determined to make a tangible impact, Aaron pivoted from film and television to permaculture and sustainable design. “[05:46] Aaron Elton: So that's really how I got started on that path. So I shifted out of film and television and I moved into permaculture design. Sustainable design science.”

b. Building a Business to Reverse Deforestation Recognizing that government and charitable efforts alone were insufficient, Aaron conceived a business model focused on reversing deforestation through ethical commerce. His approach leverages sustainable agricultural practices and empowers rural communities, aiming to create a scalable and profitable solution to environmental degradation.

V. Developing Sustainable Products

a. Moringa as a Pioneer Species Aaron explains the selection of moringa trees for their resilience and multifunctionality. “[11:05] Aaron Elton: So, this is moringa powder… Moringa trees continuously came out on top… they're one of the strongest, most resilient tree species in the world.”

b. Product Development and Benefits The core product, moringa powder, is lauded for its exceptional antioxidant properties, boasting an ORAC score of 157,000—16 times that of blueberries. Aaron details the myriad health benefits, including anti-inflammatory properties, improved respiratory health, and neurological benefits. “[16:36] Aaron Elton: So with moringa, you're getting the highest antioxidant in a food…”

VI. Overcoming Challenges

a. USDA Organic Certification Process One of the significant hurdles Aaron faced was obtaining USDA organic certification. “[13:27] Aaron Elton: When you're dealing with food in the tropics, you have microbes… getting to USDA organic certifications was, was a saga…”

b. Establishing the Factory and Farm Building the infrastructure from scratch posed logistical challenges. Aaron describes transforming a barren 130-acre plot into a thriving, sustainable farm and factory. “[14:13] Aaron Elton: The farm is completely off grid. It's 130 acres, pretty much barren land when we got there. Now it's like a fecund jungle…”

VII. Marketing and Consumer Engagement

a. Simplifying Complex Data for Consumers Aaron addresses the difficulty of conveying the extensive benefits of moringa without overwhelming consumers. “[19:20] Aaron Elton: It really is challenging… how do you market these products in such a way that it's not inundating to people…”

b. Use of Testimonials and Storytelling To bridge this gap, Aaron emphasizes the importance of personal stories and testimonials. “[19:35] Aaron Elton: So testimonials is one of the biggest things that we're going after. Absolutely. So we're encouraging our customers to subscribe because it's a monthly package…”

VIII. The Bigger Vision

a. Ethical Commerce as a Solution Aaron passionately articulates his vision of leveraging ethical purchasing power to drive environmental restoration. “[15:04] Aaron Elton: The fate of our environment is entirely within our control… by working with products like this, by working with rural communities… we can completely reforest the planet.”

b. Addressing Poverty and Malnutrition He connects environmental sustainability with socio-economic upliftment, asserting that reversing deforestation will also alleviate poverty and malnutrition through improved agricultural productivity and economic opportunities. “[15:16] Aaron Elton: Through commerce and through ethical purchasing power, we can reverse deforestation and we can bring an end to things like childhood malnutrition and therefore also to poverty…”

IX. Conclusion

The episode concludes with Aaron’s affirmation of his ongoing commitment to environmental restoration through innovative business practices. “[16:44] Aaron Elton: We can actually fuel the farms and the factories from the seed oil, which is produced by this on a commercial industrial scale… with carbon negative fuels.” Host Rudy Mawer and co-host Ray Gutierrez commend Aaron’s dedication and express excitement for his continued impact.

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Notable Quotes:

• Aaron Elton [00:00]: “The forests of our world represent over 80% of the genome on land… extinction level events taking place in these countries.”

• Aaron Elton [05:34]: “Clearly it's not going to happen through governments because if it could, it would have.”

• Aaron Elton [15:04]: “The fate of our environment is entirely within our control.”

• Aaron Elton [18:34]: “Our packaging is foil packaging to retain the integrity… of the molecules in here.”

• Aaron Elton [19:35]: “Testimonials is one of the biggest things that we're going after.”

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This episode of Living The Red Life offers a deep dive into the intersection of environmental activism and entrepreneurship. Aaron Elton's journey underscores the power of innovative business models in addressing global challenges like deforestation, while also providing actionable insights for consumers seeking to make a positive impact through their purchasing choices.

Transcript

[Aaron Elton]

The forests of our world represent over 80% of the genome on land. So as we destroy these forest ecologies, we're wiping out species off the face of the earth. So this is like, you know, extinction level events taking place in these countries. I saw that and I decided to change my career. I started thinking there must be a way to reverse this deforestation thing. The fate of our environment is entirely within our control. Yep, it's, it's something that as consumers, we can choose. By working with products like this, by working with rural communities and investing into the tropical and subtropical regions of the world through ethical businesses that by design, reverse the deforestation, we can completely reforest the planet.

[Ray Gutierrez]

So much knowledge, 14 years of data. How do you set, simplify that for the casual consumer? I see the challenge there. Do you find that challenging? Like, that's so much amazing data, but how do you simplify it?

[Aaron Elton]

And that is the challenge that we're having, right, Is like, how do we market these products in such a way that it's not, you know, inundating to people like, oh my goodness, there's too much information here. So I think.

[Rudy Moore]

My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in wonderland and change your life.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Welcome to another episode of Living the Red Life Podcast. For Insight Success Network, I'm Ray Gutierrez. Joining me today is an amazing, amazing, I would call you almost a wizard of creating forests, Forests from the ground. Aaron Elton. What a name.

[Aaron Elton]

Yeah, well, thank you.

[Ray Gutierrez]

You build forces like, give me some insight on what this is all about, my friend.

[Aaron Elton]

All right, well, you know, I was a cinematographer out of college.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Right on.

[Aaron Elton]

And I started producing hip hop music videos in Luganda called Lugaflo. Got into the music industry that way, you know, producing these videos for Canadian television. Ended up going to Uganda to shoot music videos in the ghettos and in the cities there. And I was like 22 when I first went. Blew my mind, you know, I was just hooked by Uganda. It's one of the most beautiful countries you'll ever see. And there's such a diversity of, you know, all the different things that society has to offer, from poverty to wealth and then the natural beauty of it all. And I did that for about four years. And I realized as I was researching, I did a lot of anthropology and archeology and criminology when I was in college. So I was always interested in like, what are these problems that the world is facing, in particular youth. I used to be a youth counselor as well when I was younger, lifeguard and so on. So I was really concerned about what is going on with all this incredibly ridiculous poverty that I was seeing. Particularly it's very acute in certain situations in Africa. And Africa is one of those places where you have incredible wealth, but also you have that stark contrast when you go down into the ghettos and stuff and seeing what that is. So that impacted me to think about that in a very deep way. I came across a government document called the NEMA Report in 2008, which is the National Environmental Management Authority report of the country. As I read that, it stated that Uganda will have no more high canopy jungle by 2050, meaning that it was deforesting. So about 93% of the country's energy was being supplied by the forests. This is firewood and charcoal. And already because of climate shifts, I like to call it climate shifts or climate chaos, if you will, climate changes. The farming communities and the rural communities, which represent the vast majority of African society, you have about 85% of the people living in rural areas. They're massively impacted by this. And so over the four years that I was working with indigenous musicians and hip hop artists, we were exploring through their music all of these different challenges and problems that were taking place for them in their local context. So I got a really like, detailed, protracted sort of understanding of what was going on through the lens of the actual people themselves, grassroots initiatives.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Which is great for a dp, I'm sure.

[Aaron Elton]

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, we, we shot a bunch of stuff. We were covering like AIDS stigmatization, we were covering social, social issues amongst youth that are living in poverty, political issues, stuff like this. But to me, when I saw the deforestation statistics coming from a background and a natural environment where I grew up, I understood that this is like one of the most burning issues of our age. And it wasn't just something that was only happening in Uganda. It's happening throughout the tropical world, right? And so that's a really big problem. You know, when you lose your forests, like a small tropical country like Uganda, when it loses its forest cover, you get mass erosion, the soils become tired, therefore it's harder to grow your food. So already you have a, you know, a food issue country. Like a country that has a lot of, you know, malnutrition already and it's just getting worse. Meanwhile their population was doubling every 18 years. Right. So one of the fastest growing populations in the world. So I saw that and I decided to change my career. I started thinking there must be a way to reverse this deforestation thing. Clearly it's not going to happen through governments because if it could, it would have. Yeah.

[Ray Gutierrez]

By now.

[Aaron Elton]

Yeah, clearly it's not going to happen through charities because if it could, it would have already. We would have reversed these issues. So I thought maybe it can happen through commerce, maybe it can happen through a business model.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Right on.

[Aaron Elton]

Right, yeah. So that's really how I got started on that path. So I shifted out of film and television and I moved into permaculture design. Sustainable design science.

[Ray Gutierrez]

What a pivot.

[Aaron Elton]

Exactly. Good for you. Yeah. And then I just started thinking, let's build a business that reverses deforestation. Wow. Yeah.

[Ray Gutierrez]

What do you tell to the naysayers, the folks that are the skeptics, the non believers? They're like, well, look at the globe and there's plenty of trees. What's the big deal? Like, what do you tell to those folks?

[Aaron Elton]

You know, I wouldn't say there's a lot of naysayers. I think more so it's, it's a lot of people that are just unaware.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Yeah.

[Aaron Elton]

Okay. So, yeah, so what I see is like global, like geopolitics focuses on, you know, oil and gas prices, economies and stuff like this. Whereas unlike, unlike myself who went over to these countries and had that grassroots experience, a lot of people just don't actually have the contextual understanding of these products. Right. So what I'm trying to do is educate people a little bit more about what is really important. Because the forests of our world represent over 80% of the genome on land. So land based genetics. Right. Over 80% of it comes from forest ecologies. So as we destroy these forest ecologies, we're wiping out species off the face of the earth. So this is like extinction level events taking place in these countries. And so what I say to people is I just educate them, I teach them. And that has a major, major impact. I've changed a lot of hearts and minds in that way. And I think all the people who work with me to this day, just a lot of really die hard people who wake up really, and realize, oh my goodness, we really need to fix this climate problem through the restoration and regenerative, what we call earth repair sciences.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Earth repair sciences.

[Aaron Elton]

Earth repair sciences.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Sounds amazing.

[Aaron Elton]

Yeah, it's a great career path for anybody out there. You know, if you're thinking about what to do with your life. There's 200 years of work to do, you know, and it's just getting started.

[Ray Gutierrez]

I love how you package that. That was great.

[Aaron Elton]

Yeah.

[Ray Gutierrez]

So what drew you to, besides being observer as a dp? I guess what I'm trying to land on here is you have an interesting superpower. You came from being an observer and you're seeing through the lens of a camera. You're talking about millimeters. You're talking about 50 versus 30. What was the trigger that goes, I want to become an observer and an action doer, like I want to do?

[Aaron Elton]

Oh, yeah. I mean, that comes from, I guess, the culture that I grew up in of always being told, you know, to be a leader and to. To be as ethical, you know, uphold your ethics and family values, you know. And so I come from generations of doers and pioneers as well, you know, from the history of my family. But more so it just came from the understanding that if you look throughout history at all the people who've actually made change in the world, who've actually changed the course of history, it's because they pulled up their boots and they went and did it. And so that was really. It is just this motivation of thinking to myself that, hey, I'm in my mid-20s at this point. I was around 25 when I started having these revelations. 26, 27.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Quarter life crisis. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Aaron Elton]

The early. The first one.

[Ray Gutierrez]

The first one.

[Aaron Elton]

The build up.

[Ray Gutierrez]

The build up. It gets worse. Great.

[Aaron Elton]

It gets worse. And that was really it. And so as I dove further and further into this concept of forestry as a business, restoration as a business, then I looked at the herbal medicines markets and I looked at the cosmetic, the natural cosmetic trends. People are no longer wanting to put carcinogenic chemicals on their face.

[Ray Gutierrez]

What a thought.

[Aaron Elton]

And in their bodies. Right. So I looked at all those trends and I just realized this is a multi billion dollar opportunity, you know, so that was one of the other motivators, is to see that if I go down this path and I choose this as a career one day, if I figure it all out and I survive long enough, it'll also make a heck of a lot of money for everybody who I'm working with. And that'll give me the ability to then spread this to other countries. So very much a global vision coming out of that initial Ugandan hard work.

[Ray Gutierrez]

I'll say, before we get to the birth of the hard work at Uganda, I gotta ask, were you shooting on an X01 or a Panasonic DVX? 100.

[Aaron Elton]

I was the DVX. Oh, as a DVX. Yeah, the Panasonic. Yeah. So when I was in cinematography school, Ross Kelsey was my cinematographer teacher. Yeah, he brought it out when that thing first hit. And it was like 24 frames per second.

[Ray Gutierrez]

And I did three music videos on that camera.

[Aaron Elton]

Our music videos were getting aired on Much Music before I graduated. You know, it was like, it was really a niche market because in Canada they have a rule a certain amount of the content has to be world music.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Yes.

[Aaron Elton]

So non English. Right.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Right on.

[Aaron Elton]

And so because these guys were all rapping in Luganda, it was just kind of like, you're through. But it was, you know, it was. It was student films, but it was good.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Right on. Good for you for taking on much music. I finally talk on mtv. Good for you.

[Aaron Elton]

Yeah, nice.

[Ray Gutierrez]

You did it. We're doing the thing. DP to dp. Right on, man. So I gotta. I'm gonna do the thing.

[Aaron Elton]

Yeah, yeah. This is what it is.

[Ray Gutierrez]

So what is this? It looks amazing. Greg, Congratulations on the packaging. Let's start with the exterior, moving into the interior. Yeah, colors, design. Why the packaging?

[Aaron Elton]

Okay, well, this packaging, we chose this dark color because a lot of the herbal medicines that we work with are very sensitive to light. So a lot of the antioxidants, which is where some of the magic comes from in herbs, herbal plant based medicines are in the chlorophyll. And the chlorophyll is extremely sensitive to light. So our packaging is foil packaging to retain the integrity, if you will, of the molecules in here. This is moringa powder. So as I started moving towards building a business of producing herbal medicines from regenerative agroforestry farms, I studied a lot of different tree species. So what are they good at? Are they drought resistant? What's their survivability? Can they handle the climate fluctuations in terms of flooding and drought, which is happening all the time in the tropics? And Moringa trees continuously came out on top in that category. So as a pioneer species, we can use Moringa trees to do early stage, what we call pioneer restoration. So we can like carpet bomb. Carpet bomb. You know, we can literally just blanket desertified damaged areas and the Moringa trees will survive. So they're one of the strongest, most resilient tree species in the world. They don't like frost, but other than that, nothing else kills them. And they don't like getting too wet. So that you can use these for desert reclamation as well. Then when you come onto the Product side. And you look at, what is this? This is the most powerful herbal medicine that I've ever come across. So it came out of Asia, like India. It came into Africa with the colonial era when, you know, the British were bringing over a lot of Indians to come and work with them. And so they brought it. So in Ayurvedic medicine, which is the traditional medicine in India, it's been known for like 3,000 years. There's Sanskrit scrolls that talk about this and they claim in Ayurvedic medicine it cures over 250 diseases. So when you read about that, you're like, well, that's miraculous. That sounds pretty insane. And so I started researching this after discovering it with one of my friends in Uganda. And it just continuously went to the top of the list. So it is the highest antioxidant by nature.

[Ray Gutierrez]

What's your quest been like to get this in people's hands? What's your journey been like?

[Aaron Elton]

Oh, man. I mean, look, when you're, when you're dealing with food in the tropics, you have microbes, you have bacteria, you know, you have bacteria, mold problems, E. Coli, blah, blah, blah. So getting to USDA organic certifications was, was a saga, I believe, Right. It was like an epic journey of you have to build the factory. We built the factory from scratch. The farm is completely off grid. It's 130 acres, pretty much barren land when we got there. Now it's like a fecund jungle, you know, it's like a verdant Garden of Eden. And the moringa tree grows within that. Right. So getting there was very much guided by the principles and practices of the USDA organic certification process.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Right on.

[Aaron Elton]

Kind of like a user manual of how not to poison people. And that was it. So, yeah, a lot of standard operating procedures that ensure that from the time it goes into the ground to the time it ends up in the package, that everything is done up to code.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Right on. Yeah, you mentioned SOPs and Resilience. Two bingo cards for a Red Life podcast. Right on, dude. So what are we going to learn about your Legacy Makers episode? You're about to literally walk onto our psych wall for the nerds. That's the white wall with the infinity wall. Anyways, sorry, I had a nerd stork there. You're literally about to walk on a cycle wall and do your 90 minute session on average. Spoiler alert. Our interview sessions are about 90 minutes, but we're going to consolidate that into a 22 minute epic piece. Yeah, what's the trailer? What can we foresee?

[Aaron Elton]

Oh, man. Like, I really just want the world to understand that the fate of our environment is entirely within our control.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Yep.

[Aaron Elton]

It's something that as consumers we can choose by working with products like this, by working with rural communities and investing into the tropical and subtropical regions of the world through ethical businesses that by design, reverse the deforestation, we can completely reforest the planet. That's really the main thing I want to get across and how we go from where we're at now, which is a very destructive pathway, right. Like these, these countries are suffering and it's only going to get worse if we don't make that change. And so I think that's the key, the key thing that I'm trying to do through my career through products and companies like this is to show the world that through commerce and through ethical purchasing power, we can reverse deforestation and we can bring an end to things like childhood malnutrition and therefore also to poverty in due course, you know, in a step by step process. And I think at the end of the day also that I want people to understand that this is a highly lucrative business model. You know, this is just one product, but moringa itself can go into thousands of different formulas. We just did a lip balm which is infused with moringa.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Right on.

[Aaron Elton]

So you're getting all the antioxidants and all the anti inflammatories into the lip balm. Just as an example, you can do treatment and so on.

[Ray Gutierrez]

So results quickly, like oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. What can someone expect to feel?

[Aaron Elton]

So with, with moringa, you're getting the highest antioxidant in a food. Okay, okay. So blueberries have an orax score of 9,700. Moringa has an ORAC score of 157,000. Right. So 16 times more antioxidant of power than blueberries. That's just one benefit. It has 36 anti inflammatories as well. So by taking moringa on a daily basis, people pretty quickly, especially people who have, you know, elders who have, let's talk like inflammation issues, right, which, which comes along with almost all the different diseases out there. The vast majority of diseases come along with some form of inflammation. So it massively reduces inflammation in the body, it helps the body cleanse and purify your blood system. I've got people who take this for their asthma. They no longer get asthma attacks. As long as they're taking their moringa, their lungs are clear, you know, and they can Breathe better. And so you get more stamina, more performance, you know, as well it has a lot of neurological effects. So it's really good for your neurological body, your brain, and also your nervous system as well. People with arthritis report miracles, you know, Wow. A lot of people with arthritis, they swear by moringa. High blood pressure, it lowers your blood pressure. So you, you got to look out for things like that. But I mean, you know, if you look it up, and I encourage anybody who's watching this, look up moringa, and you're gonna go down a rabbit hole. And I've been on. I've been falling down that rabbit hole for the last 14 years.

[Ray Gutierrez]

I can tell.

[Aaron Elton]

And I'm still discovering new stuff about this plant every day. Cranon, you know, we will like. One of the last things I'll say about this.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Sure.

[Aaron Elton]

Is that the crops and the trees and the orchard model system that we've created, it also produces carbon negative biodiesel. So we can actually fuel the farms and the factories from the seed oil, which is produced by this on a commercial industrial scale.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Right on.

[Aaron Elton]

With carbon negative fuels.

[Ray Gutierrez]

I was going to just add expert educate, which is something you'll do on our Legacy Makers episode. So much knowledge. 14 years of data. How do you simplify that for the casual consumer that's pushing their cart down the shopping mall and they look at your product and go, wow, that's a lot of great stuff. And why is it just sitting here at a Kmart, not to age myself, but at a Kmart, I see the challenge there. Do you find that challenging? That's so much amazing data, but how do you simplify it?

[Aaron Elton]

It really is challenging. Even when we were doing the packaging, you know, there's 92 vitamins and minerals in, you know, so how do you get that all in there?

[Ray Gutierrez]

How do you communicate that and not sound like you're just you, like you're. You're selling an Excelsior.

[Aaron Elton]

Yeah.

[Ray Gutierrez]

And Red Dead Redemption or something like, you know.

[Aaron Elton]

Yeah, no, for sure. And that is the challenge that we're having. Right. Is like, how. How do we market these products in such a way that it's not, you know, inundating to people like, oh, my goodness, there's too much information here. So I think just having good marketing campaigns, you know, we're looking for more social influencers. A lot of people grasp onto personal stories.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Absolutely.

[Aaron Elton]

So testimonials is one of the biggest things that we're going after. Absolutely. So we're encouraging our customers to subscribe because it's a monthly package, so you get it. And also, we designed it. That loot crate, we designed it so it actually slips through people's mail slots. So this can just get mailed straight to your door. But, yeah, I mean, it's all about telling the story as far as I'm concerned. But, yeah, I don't know how else I could answer that question, to be honest.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Well, I was going to take. I'll let you take a moment to digest, and then I'll save it for your actual episode.

[Aaron Elton]

All right.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Lauren will be hosting your interview. You're in for a treat. It's quite the experience. I always push that. 50% of the legacy Makers episode is the filming. The other 50 is what's happening inside of you as you experience it.

[Aaron Elton]

Yeah.

[Ray Gutierrez]

My friend, thank you so much.

[Aaron Elton]

Hey, thanks so much.

[Ray Gutierrez]

That was such an honor. I can't wait to see your episode and learn some more. And good luck to you, my friend.

[Aaron Elton]

Yeah.

[Ray Gutierrez]

Thank you for educating me some moringa. Thank you. And Taruti, this one's for you, bud. This concludes another episode of Living the Red Life podcast. And for Inside Success, I am Ray Gutierrez.