How do you save the Amazon rainforest? Easy. All you need is a bit of cash and a computer. Then go to the site of Cool Earth and, with a click of the mouse, you can ”Add to cart” half-an-acre (0,2ha) of endangered rainforest for £35. Cool Earth claims this will keep locked up 130 tonnes of carbon dioxide and protect 400 unique species. So far, the site says, more than 12 400ha have been saved.
One of Cool Earth’s main supporters is Johan Eliasch, the man chosen by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to be his forest adviser, with the task of looking at mechanisms that stimulate ”deforestation avoidance”. Besides selling the odd half-acre on the website, Eliasch says he is persuading fellow millionaires to follow his example by buying chunks of rainforest. He claims to have bought 160 000ha, and it is this land that is being offered for sale on the site.
But is this really the best way to save the rainforest? Brazilians have always been touchy about foreign designs on the Amazon. And news that foreigners are buying up large swaths of their rainforest has infuriated Amazonians.
The problem with Eliasch’s ”green colonialism” is the implication that Brazilians are not capable of saving the rainforest from destruction, and the fact that it ignored the many organisations already in the field, particularly those of the original inhabitants of the rainforest. Yanomami Indian leader Davi Kopenawa said the forest could not be bought. ”It is our life; we have always protected it.”
He is not alone. The Alliance of Forest Peoples, which represents indigenous groups and the many communities that live sustainably from the forest, says the way to save the forest is to protect the indigenous and extractive reserves, where satellite data show deforestation has largely been held at bay so far. Indigenous reserves alone cover a fifth of the Brazilian Amazon.
For the many environmental organisations with years of experience in Amazon campaigning, the only answer is to stop all deforestation. Nine of the biggest green NGOs and leading Brazilian organisations have put forward a seven-year plan to reduce deforestation to zero by 2015. Almost a fifth of Brazil’s Amazon region has been deforested, mostly in the past 40 years.
Zero deforestation would bring a huge reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions that make Brazil one of the top five climate polluters in the world, and stop the loss of biodiversity. The NGOs believe the key is economic, so that standing forest has more value than what may replace it. They want the government’s generous financial incentives to be redirected to ”environmental services”.
Of course, the key player is the Brazilian government, and the problem is that it speaks with many voices. Its powerful Works Minister, Dilma Roussef, leads the ”developmentalist” sector demanding infrastructure, roads and dams.
Environment Minister Marina Silva advocates a mosaic of giant conservation units and environmental safeguards before the infrastructure. Yet her ministry is behind a controversial new ”forests for hire” scheme to allow selected Brazilian logging companies into areas of previously out-of-bounds national forests. The idea is that it will be easier to control such logging. And Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes proposes that deforested land should be used for sugar-cane production. — Â