Rooted in the Cloud: Choosing Nature First in a Digital Age

Cloud Forest Institute didn’t begin with a screen—but screens were there from the beginning.

Back in 1996, when most of the world was just discovering the internet, we were already exploring how online tools might support learning across borders. Early on, we joined bold experiments like MIT’s Globewide Network Academy, curious about how education could reach across mountains and oceans. We learned quickly that technology could be a powerful bridge.

We’ve always preferred being outside—listening to birds, planting trees, sharing food and laughter with friends. For us, computers have always been tools, not spaces to live in. We approach them with respect, but also caution. They’re useful—but they’ll never replace what really matters: relationships, land, stories, and shared work.

That’s why Cloud Forest Institute continues to walk a careful line:
We use tech when it helps us connect, teach, or organize.
But we stay rooted in place, in people, and in a slower rhythm of life.

Today, our programs still reflect that balance:

• Our online platforms support ecological literacy, but always point back to Earth—its rhythms, its people, its languages.

• Our governance is shaped by ancestral principles of reciprocity, not tech-industry trends.

• Our student exchanges and pen-pal projects begin online, but culminate in real-world service and shared meals under the trees of Mindo.

We don't reject digital tools—we simply refuse to let them lead. We use them carefully, gratefully, and only when they serve life, not replace it.

As AI evolves and the virtual world grows louder, we find ourselves returning, again and again, to what’s real: moss under our feet, the hum of a pollinator, the quiet power of planting something together. The future may be digital, but we’re choosing to root it in the forest—where community, culture, and care still grow best.