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And at the select drinks hosted by Selfridge’s when Taylor-Wood wrapped its store in the largest photograph ever seen, the couple joined fashion designer Stella McCartney and musicians such as Alex James .For her project Crying Men, Taylor-Wood persuaded a galaxy of A-list actors including Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Paul Newman, Willem Dafoe and Laurence Fishburne to be pictured in tears. Though most were not friends, it was an idea which required the kind of networking skills at which the couple have proved adept.And as the British contemporary art scene has blossomed in the last 15 years to become both lucrative and fashionable, Jopling, with his wife at his side, has ridden the wave of celebrity to the benefit of his stable of high-profile artists – and himself.Jay Jopling was born in 1963, the son of Michael Jopling, a Yorkshire landowner better known as chief whip and Minister of Agriculture in Margaret Thatcher’s government.He grew up on the family farm but was sent to boarding school in Scarborough from the age of seven, and then on to Eton. He is a man always willing to be tempted into moving on for a final nightcap. “He’s got a zest for life and he doesn’t want to miss out on anything,” says Tim Marlow, the arts broadcaster who has been White Cube’s director of exhibitions since 2002.With his wife, the artist Sam Taylor-Wood, Jopling was among the handful of guests at the civil partnership ceremony for Sir Elton John and David Furnish. “London is unarguably the pre-eminent city for contemporary art in Europe.

White Cube Mason’s Yard will allow us to showcase artists in the centre of the capital as well as continuing to present their work in.. the East End. The new White Cube will more than double our gallery space and provide a broader platform for bringing world-class art to a world-class city,” he said.It is perhaps a mark of Jopling’s ambition that in taking over a former electricity sub-station and creating in its place a cool emporium of culture, the project echoes nothing less than Tate Modern, the gallery that has contributed most to the huge expansion of public interest in art in Britain in the last decade.And just as Hoxton Square played host to 2,000 people when Tracey Emin opened her last show there, Mason’s Yard is set to be party central for the extraordinary collection of creatives that any reader of the society and gossip columns would recognise as the Jopling gang.If there is one thing that defines Jopling, even more than the stable of Young British Artists whom he has known and nurtured since the early Nineties, it is parties. But last night this unassuming building was playing host to one of the most eagerly anticipated gallery openings for years. Jay Jopling’s White Cube Mason’s Yard, the third addition to the empire of the Old Etonian dealer, had opened its doors.

The photographer Andreas Gursky flew in from Germany to mark the occasion, as did the painter Anselm Kiefer, who travelled from his home in France to join a clutch of former Turner Prize-winners, models, musicians, celebrities and collectors to celebrate Jopling’s latest triumph.
White Cube Mason’s Yard is destined to be one of the most talked-about new additions to the capital’s cultural scene, a venue for exhibitions from the likes of Tracey Emin and the Chapman brothers, and the North Americans Chuck Close and Jeff Wall.Thirteen years after he launched his first gallery – the original White Cube – in a tiny 13ft by 13ft room on the opposite side of Duke Street, and six years since he opened the doors to his second, in the grittier surroundings of Hoxton, east London, the sparkling £12m venue will run in parallel with White Cube Hoxton. It may not look like much. An unprepossessing grey building tucked away behind the London Library in the heart of London’s “Establishment” quarter, St James’s. It is estimated that one hectare of rainforest has to be felled to log just one mahogany tree.Asia lost almost a third of its tropical forest between 1960 and 1980.Almost 90 per cent of West Africa’s rainforest has been destroyed.Between 1980 and 2000, 14 per cent of Brazil’s rainforest was cleared.Madagascar has 10,000 species of plants, 80 per cent of which are endemic. Rainforest land cleared for pasture or farming degrades quickly and is usually abandoned.In the 20th century, 90 tribes of native peoples have been wiped out in Brazil alone.Many scientists argue that current rates of deforestation will see nearly all the world’s tropical rainforests destroyed by between 2030 and 2050.Only 4 per cent of the world’s tropical rainforests are protected.. Almost 90 per cent of its forests have been destroyed.About 50 per cent of all mammals and 25 per cent of all bird species in peninsular Malaysia will become extinct by 2020 if forest destruction continues.We lose 50 species every day due to tropical deforestation.Almost 65 per cent of Central America has been cleared to create pasture for grazing cattle. “I feel so sad when I fly over areas where forest used to be and there is now nothing, with everything cut down.”The photographer has grave concerns about plans to build a road from Peru all the way to Brazil through the Amazon rainforest.

www.proud.co.uk. Rainforest: A Photographic Journey, is published by Dorling Kindersley with The Rainforest Foundation, £25; (2 per cent of the royalties will go to the foundation)The world’s disappearing forestsWhere there was once 15.5 million square kilometres of tropical rainforest worldwide (14 per cent of the land), deforestation has reduced this to 6.7 million sq km.Around 150,000 sq km of rainforest, equivalent to the size of England and Wales, is destroyed every year.In Congo Basin countries such as Cameroon, Congo and Gabon, logging is the principal threat; every year, 137,000ha are logged in these three countries alone. “It goes right through national parks and, of course, animals will be hunted and more logging will happen. Governments say they are concerned about the rainforests, but it seems they care more about economics.”Now that his mission is complete with the publication of his book, Rainforest, Marent’s fascination for these precious habitats remains undiminished. “To me, rainforests are the greatest treasure houses on Earth. It is tragic that we are losing them just as we are beginning to appreciate their true value.”Rainforest: A Photographic Journey, sponsored by Nikon, runs at Proud Camden from 6 to 29 October. Borneo alone has between 10,000 and 15,000 species of flowering plant and Indonesia’s rainforests are some of the oldest on Earth Now, only fragments remain.

In Southeast Asia, palm plantations have led to the clearing of one of the world’s most biologically diverse regions. “This is the only place in the world that these crayfish can be found, so I got busy taking pictures,” he says. Unfortunately, he became so preoccupied that he failed to notice the heavy rain had brought out leeches, too His legs were covered with them. “I ripped the leeches off and headed for the campsite but no matter how fast I walked, they kept appearing I ended up running out of the forest,” he says “Leeches are not so bad,” he adds, stoically. Marent says that illegal cutting is commonplace and corruption is rife with the police, who are supposed to monitor the forest. In Australia, he came across some bright-blue crayfish after heavy rainfall that had left the forest floor wet enough for them to hunt on land. “They look disgusting but they don’t carry diseases.”Over the years, Marent has witnessed first-hand the destruction of his beloved rainforests.