In conversation with Andres Gut 1 - Early times

Andres Gut "why not me?" In mid-November 2008, Scott Poynton had the pleasure of travelling to north-eastern Switzerland to meet Erika and Andres Gut. Andres, the long-standing Chairman of Precious Woods, knew then that he was in the final stages of his fight against cancer. Andres and Scott Poynton had been discussing for some months the idea that they would do an interview to capture Andres' thoughts and to reflect on a life well lived. Despite speaking with some difficulty, Andres shared many stories from his life; how he'd always been passionate about forests and how the many things he'd done had led him to his work with Precious Woods. The podcast covers a long discussion held over two days. We have broken the discussion into a number of periods in Andres' life but there has been no real editing because this is Andres' story as he wanted to tell it. Andres had a fascinating life dominated by a readiness to lead. He started many new initiatives and his philosophy was 'why not me?'. Andres didn't wait for other people to do things; he got up and did them himself, always in partnership with Erika. For any young person entering the forestry world, or any profession really, this is a great lesson. We hope you find inspiration from the podcast; as Scott certainly did sharing the conversation with him. We also hope young professionals will be encouraged to enter the forest sector or if they're already in it, to do more, as Andres did, to save tropical forests. Andres passed away on December 12th 2008.