This tree's returns outperform VC funds. Why it is disappearing? | Matthew Ross | TEDxBoston

Well, money doesn't technically grow on trees, but wealth does. One coconut palm, planted in the ground for 60 years, produces 57 marketable products — from water and oil to biochar, rope, and carbon credits — at a 168% compound annual growth rate that outperforms most venture capital funds. The problem is that the trees and the farmers who tend them came of age at the same time, about 60 years ago, and both are now disappearing together. Coconut water that costs five dollars today could cost fifty in a decade if no action is taken. Not because of market forces, but because the source trees and the people who grow them are literally vanishing. Across 27 million hectares of tropical coastline, the opportunity to restore that system and build the wealthiest portfolios on Earth is still there. But the window is closing fast. Watch the talk to find out how. Matthew Ross is the founder of a tropical agroforestry enterprise working to restore and expand coconut farming across 27 million hectares of coastline and island communities in South and Southeast Asia, building biodiverse multi-species portfolios that he calls coconut portfolios. With a background in entrepreneurship and community development, he spent years living and working in rural coconut-farming villages in the Philippines, where he observed firsthand the twin crises of aging farmer populations and aging coconut trees threatening to collapse a $10 billion global market. He argues that the coconut palm is the world's wealthiest tree, producing 57 marketable products over a 60-year lifespan, and that reconnecting trees and farmers to biodiverse community-based systems is the path to both ecological restoration and rural economic renewal. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx