Buying the Amazon

Thanks for the link TCS!

The Nature Conservancy has great projects involving alternative energy in rural China, and also works with the Chinese government on ways to adopt sustainable practises.On flights there the airline I tend to fly (DragonAir) has a donation envelope for passengers to put any spare change (or bills!) for the group. I always make it a point to collect all the coins and odd bills I accumulate in my travels and put it all into that envelope.

I am going to ring their Hong Kong office tomorrow and become an official member. :)
 
I can't say I'm that impressed by this idea.

Wealthy westerners parachuting into impoverished countires telling them which resources they may or may not use.
 
Geckko said:
Wealthy westerners parachuting into impoverished countires telling them which resources they may or may not use.
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That's different than wealthly lumber companies going into impoverished countries and telling them which resource they are going to take?
 
As far as I'm concerned, biodiversity and conservation take precedence over diplomacy. Over human rights, even. It may be an extreme view, but we live in extreme times.

In "Collapse", Jared Diamond talks about former president of the Dominican Republic, Joaquin Balaguer, and how he used his dictatorship to not only rule the country with an iron fist, but also to protect its natural resources. All logging was prohibited, illegal loggers were shot on sight. Squatters in national parks were expelled, even rich ones who had built houses within park boundaries. He was probably viewed as ruthless. But his acts saved his country from falling into the same environmental ruin as its neighbor, Haiti.
 
Bob Klase said:
That's different than wealthly lumber companies going into impoverished countries and telling them which resource they are going to take?
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Regulation works fine most places. You can regulate against adverse development, e.g. allow respnosible sustainable logging, but you can't regulate to require development (short of nationalising the resource - which in effect is legalised theft).

HOw about a hypothetical. A billionaire takes exception to your use of electricity as it contributes to global warming. So he buys all the land around you house and then cuts off all services running over, under or through his property to you house. He thinks he is doing the right thing and saving you. What do you think?
 
yanit said:
As far as I'm concerned, biodiversity and conservation take precedence over diplomacy. Over human rights, even. It may be an extreme view, but we live in extreme times.
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[my bold]

At this point I can't see us ever having a fruitful dialogue on this issue
 
Geckko said:
How about a hypothetical. A billionaire takes exception to your use of electricity as it contributes to global warming. So he buys all the land around you house and then cuts off all services running over, under or through his property to you house. He thinks he is doing the right thing and saving you. What do you think?
Click to expand...

Don't know which country we are talking about, but in the US, a "billionaire" wouldn't be able to do that.
 
Regulation?

Geckko said:
Regulation works fine most places.
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Unfortunately not in rampantly corrupt third world countries. I should know; I am from one.

And just as unfortunately the boundaries of these third world countries contain most of the planet's remaining rainforest, as well as the richest collection of marine life ... which is being decimated by overfishing (despite regulation), cyanide fishing (cyanide is poured into the water, killing fish, plantlife, and anything else it comes in contact with, also despite regulation), and dynamite fishing (ditto, except it's done with explosives which destroy the slow-growing coral reefs too).

Regulation does not work where I am from because law enforcers and law makers alike are too easily bribed.

So I see only good in a person, whether local or foreign, who will take stewardship of some peice of land (or water) and protect it in a way that government cannot.

Globalization has turned the Earth into every single person's responsibility. Certainly when speaking about the state of our environment, it is no longer "my country" or "your country" or "their country", but instead "our planet."
 
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