Money for Nothing — But Is it Enough?

Getting paid for not razing the rain forest. It’s nice work if you can get it –- but the key is to make it nice enough to compete with the return for clear-cutting and growing, say, soybeans or palms.

That’s the challenge Brazil faces as it attempts to conserve what’s left of the Amazonian jungle while also maintaining a sound economy.

So far, it's a tough sell — but it's beginning to catch on.

According to a New York Times article, the United States is leaning strongly toward providing funds to pay poor Brazilian farmers to avoid clear-cutting practices. As the article mentions, “The payment strategies may include direct payments to landowners to keep forests standing, as well as indirect subsidies, like higher prices for beef and soy that are produced without resorting to clear-cutting.”

The United Nations already has such a plan, offering carbon credits for cleaning factories or planting trees. The carbon credits are then sold profitably to corporations or nations that have overspent their carbon allowance.

Meanwhile, farming cooperatives are working with major corporations, like McDonald’s, to ensure that sales are made primarily from older farms –- farms that have not clear-cut land recently. This type of agreement, at least in theory, would avoid rewarding new rain forest destruction.

With all this good news, though, there’s still the worry that income depends mainly on agricultural production. And agricultural production relies on land. While money is available for not farming, more is available for the products farmers produce.

Will landowners accept less money to keep their rain forest lands pristine, with the understanding that sustainable forests are key to a sustainable world? Can corporations and companies increase the rewards for non-destruction of the jungle? Will it be possible for Brazilian farmers to do well by doing good?

Only time — and the farmers of the Amazon — will tell.

Photo courtesy of NASA LBA-ECO Project