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Since Europe and the US have committed to total reforestation, it’s only natural to expect Brazil to.... Oh wait a minute Seriously, everyone up in arms, let’s

Since Europe and the US have committed to total reforestation, it’s only natural to expect Brazil to.... Oh wait a minute Seriously, everyone up in arms, let’s put together funds and lease those lands to protect them. I’d contribute money myself. Since avoiding the damage is more valuable that their commercial activities we should be able to outbid them... right? Or are we saying Brazil should bear the costs themselves?

parsimo2010 7y ago
I have some issue with the idea of buying/leasing land to protect the environment. It's a noble idea, but I don't think it will work in the long term. Most likely, you won't be able to outbid private companies- at least not for any useful portion of the land. Their usage makes money, while your idea takes money. For your idea to win you would need a lot more rich environmentalists than currently exist. I think a better idea would be to enact reasonable laws that protect the environment- the money that you would have spent buying land could be used to elect non-corrupt politicians. There is a similar effort in Colorado to buy up land and pay off farmers to prevent them from using too much of the Colorado River so that way downstream states like California can have some. It's created with good intentions, but I think that it can't work in the long term- all it takes is a publicly accessible portion of the river to get overdrawn, or a stubborn farmer to refuse to sell and instead start piping his access of the river to other farmers, and then the idea fails. It's more sustainable to have legally binding usage agreements created by the states that can be enforced with the police and jail time- you just need to motivate the politicians to get off their butts and create the agreements.
- paulsutter 7y ago
  Yes. My actual point is that people like to complain but want the costs borne by others.
pvaldes 7y ago
> let’s put together funds Not anymore. Lost opportunity. Brazil had received funds and support since 80's at least with Mitterrand being president of France; and is clearly not working. It seems that Bolsonaro had rejected expressely foreign funding and has insulted some big donors in the last weeks. Some places that had been protected in the past (probably with the help of foreign money) are now being assaulted and declared free game and the main culprit of the actual state of mess, we like it or not, is one man. I fully agree that Europe must be (and can be) reforested but there are other ecosystems in the place and some of them are valuable and host endemic species that don't live in any other place

parsimo2010 7y ago

I have some issue with the idea of buying/leasing land to protect the environment. It's a noble idea, but I don't think it will work in the long term. Most likely, you won't be able to outbid private companies- at least not for any useful portion of the land. Their usage makes money, while your idea takes money. For your idea to win you would need a lot more rich environmentalists than currently exist. I think a better idea would be to enact reasonable laws that protect the environment- the money that you would have spent buying land could be used to elect non-corrupt politicians. There is a similar effort in Colorado to buy up land and pay off farmers to prevent them from using too much of the Colorado River so that way downstream states like California can have some. It's created with good intentions, but I think that it can't work in the long term- all it takes is a publicly accessible portion of the river to get overdrawn, or a stubborn farmer to refuse to sell and instead start piping his access of the river to other farmers, and then the idea fails. It's more sustainable to have legally binding usage agreements created by the states that can be enforced with the police and jail time- you just need to motivate the politicians to get off their butts and create the agreements.

paulsutter 7y ago
Yes. My actual point is that people like to complain but want the costs borne by others.

pvaldes 7y ago

> let’s put together funds Not anymore. Lost opportunity. Brazil had received funds and support since 80's at least with Mitterrand being president of France; and is clearly not working. It seems that Bolsonaro had rejected expressely foreign funding and has insulted some big donors in the last weeks. Some places that had been protected in the past (probably with the help of foreign money) are now being assaulted and declared free game and the main culprit of the actual state of mess, we like it or not, is one man. I fully agree that Europe must be (and can be) reforested but there are other ecosystems in the place and some of them are valuable and host endemic species that don't live in any other place