"A great reminder of how important it is to protect our planet's forests. Through inspiring images and information, it makes you want to take the time to get smarter and more involved." —juror Kevin Flatt

"Navigation that zooms around the screen may be what initially catches your attention, but the deeper architecture is what contributes to the experience that brings you back. It provides innovative ways for visitors to structure the information in ways that make sense to them—for example, trees sorted by height." —juror Jeffrey Veen

Overview: This beautiful site creates a venue for people around the world to exchange their thoughts on the future of forests. Along with many other interactive features, it includes a viral "Forests’ Gifts" module that allows users to personalize and send inspirational greeting cards to their friends.

• 52 video files
• Content available in both English and Japanese
• Flash front end/PERL backend

Comments by Shinzo Fukui:
"Everybody thinks that they already know about forests. Perhaps people need to alter their perspective a bit. Forests are not only groups of trees, but a function of the global environment. They provide us with fertile soil, water and food and their existence is necessary for us to survive.

"Forests are also fragile. Many are damaged by human beings. But, very few people think about how daily life brings harm to forests. FujiFilm's goal for 'Forests Forever' was to make people think about the relationship between human beings and nature.

"To achieve this goal, we started gathering environmental data, and research in related fields like vegetation, biology, geography, climate, history and regional cultures. Then we designed relationships between global environmental issues and the living functions of forests (I owe a debt of gratitude to the many people from these disparate fields who provided us with valuable insight). Ultimately, we were able to select which forests to feature and include and to provide insights regarding related environmental issues. We carefully organized different types of information and illustrated statistical data to make it easy for visitors to understand. The same process we used for editorial also succeeded as a visual design process. An extraordinary amount of thought and effort went in to how best to show photographs. We carefully culled photographs and arranged them in a sequence that provided the same effect as walking through a forest.

"Working in an urban environment in Tokyo makes it extremely difficult to remain conscious about nature and its seasons all of the time. But, after starting this project, it's much more important to me to be in-touch with nature, and I think many on the creative team feel the same way. It's important. "Everyone must begin to think about the type of forests we will see 100 years from now."