The thing is, "paying Brazil to not raze the Amazon" has already been tried and failed. The government sees it as a way to fleece rich environmentalists and has

The thing is, "paying Brazil to not raze the Amazon" has already been tried and failed. The government sees it as a way to fleece rich environmentalists and has no interest in abandoning their meal ticket. Even if the government was aligned on keeping the Amazon as it was, they have their own enforcement struggles. Once an illegal developer has razed a plot of land, there's not really much the government can do to stop them. The damage has already been done. Even worse, by the time the government is even aware of a particular section of illegally cleared land, it's already been sold off, developed, and has people living in it. The only option now is to either: 1. Grandfather in the illegal land 2. Forcibly evict and ruin the lives of people who bought into the illegal purchase so that the scarred land can remain fallow for decades Overwhelmingly Brazilian courts have chosen #1 over #2. Enforcement is too far behind land development to make any sort of "pay to save" scheme work.