[gwnn]

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Ecu...2261/story.html

Is this a 3.6 billion $ case of blackmail or a nice offer to save the environment?

[Fluffy]

I think it is very smart, take the money, and in 2 years the goverment changes and drills, nice way to improve the benefits.

[OleBerg]

If they don't go back on the deal, I think it is fair.

The countries that supplies the rest of the world with their natural ressources, like oil, takes full money for it.

If we want Ecuador to retain their natural ressource, for our benefit, we have to pay up.

[Aberlour10]

German brewery companies advertise with solgans like.. hey dude buy a crate of our beer and you save 1 m2 of the rain forrest in Amazon. "Green" charity sells here.

PS. I am not going to publish here how many m2 I have already saved this way

[onoway]

One man's very practical (and working) vision of how to renew devastated tropical areas and provide for energy production, with a little bit of climate modification along the way.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=3vfuCPFb8wk
This is not to suggest Ecuador ought to allow the oil companies in; I have seen another video about people trying with mycoremediation to rescue an area left in an absolutely horrendous state by western oil companies operating in south America. Also, not everyone has this man's careful consideration of what might appear to be to extraneous details which is likely an essential ingredient for success.

[kenberg]

I can see why Ecuador would like this, I cannot imagine why anyone else would participate.

[hrothgar]

kenberg, on Sep 17 2010, 04:00 PM, said:

I can see why Ecuador would like this, I cannot imagine why anyone else would participate.

I think that this is a perfectly reasonable idea.

I think that there are a number of issues that need to be worked out, the most important being some way to ensure that the government doesn't take the money, wait five years, and then raze the forests any way.

You need to design some kind of system that ensures a steady stream of payments over time.

As to your question about why should anyone bother to participate:

1. Leveling vast amounts of rain forest is in Ecuador's short term interest. It runs counter to a lot of other people's long term interest. How would you prefer people stop the Ecuador government from doing this?

I suppose that we bomb them back into the stone age...
Maybe release some genetically engineered plague to kill Ecuadorians...

Allow individuals, governments, what have you to contribute to save the rain forest seems like a much better idea.

2. Why did the US government bother to create National Parks?

(For what its worth, I'm flashing back to an old school South Park episode right now)

[helene_t]

Dunno about this particular scheme. It could be a bottomless sink if we were to pay all kind of banana republics for all the nasty things they don't do. Pay the North Koreans a billion for postponing their nuke program another month. Pay the various Zaire armies for not raping as many female refugees as they otherwise would etc.

But more generally I am certainly in favor of richer countries contributing to the protection of the environment in poor countries. Just not sure what the best way to implement it is.

[kenberg]

Mainly my skepticism is along the following lines:

Nothing in the scheme envisions actually using less oil. While it is true that some extractions are more damaging than others, I am pretty skeptical of this turning out to be all that much of a plus for the environment. And the thought that five years from now they will say "That was then, this is now" certainly occurred to me and seems highly likely.