Preservation of globally important wild spaces like wetlands and tropical forests tends to hinge on a question of economics; how can developing regions preserve these vast swaths of land without losing the financial benefits of developing them? Logging, for example, threatens old growth and tropical forests around the world, but the practice also brings in critical-if short-lived-revenue for the developing countries that contain them. The concept of avoided deforestation addresses both poverty and preservation, as it involves paying countries not to cut down and burn trees for agriculture.

While the World Bank, with G8 approval, started up a multimillion dollar fund to support avoided deforestation last year, new research points to the economic viability of doing so.

According to the study,

"Based on these estimates, the overall cost to buy carbon credits would be lower than what developed nations would expect to pay to reduce emissions through regulation of industry, transportation and energy sources, said Brent Sohngen, a study co-author and professor of agricultural, environmental and development economics at Ohio State University. . . .

"Compared to other options, an avoided deforestation program would be relatively cheap and practical for the United States," said Sohngen, who developed one of three computer models used to calculate the estimates.

"It would save American taxpayers money and provide a huge transfer of funding from one region of the world to another, giving developing countries a larger chunk of the world's economic pie to use as they see fit," he said." - Environment News Service

At this summer's UN Biodiversity Conference, delegates focused in part on the problem of biopiracy, a distillation of this same issue of natural and financial wealth distribution. Namely, some of the world's poorest regions contain some of the world's richest natural resources. At the same time these regions need economically and environmentally sustainable development to support their populations, the world needs to hold onto these valuable places as sources of lifesaving medicines, carbon sinks, and hotbeds of global biodiversity.

In fact, the biodiversity conference saw the genesis of the Life Web initiative, a network in this same vein that matches developing nations with valuable natural resources to countries with the fiscal wealth to help protect those places.

The Coalition for Rainforest Nations also supports avoided deforestation as part of the solution to combat poverty in developing nations and reduce carbon emissions around the world:

"In many forested rural areas, the only real options for economic growth often require the destruction of natural forests - either when clearing for agricultural commodities (like soy, coffee, tea, sugar, rice, etc) or through the sale of wood products. In effect, international markets offer perverse incentives from the perspective of environmental sustainability, biodiversity conservation, and climate stability. . . . Coalition Nations aim to establish models that will work for all forested tropical countries, using a combination of income streams derived from: carbon sequestration (carbon releases avoided by retaining forests), selective logging coupled with vertical market integration, eco-friendly ‘cash crop' cultivation, biodiversity purchase and leases, community-based venture creation, reprioritized international grant strategies, etc." - Coalition for Rainforest Nations

Finally, Avoided Deforestation Partners has similar aims although they include the private sector as part of the solution, as well as governments and NGOs. The think tank established just last year, says that,

"Recently, the governments of the eight largest industrialized nations pledged $3.1 billion for all global environmental concerns over a five-year period. Clearly, there is a significant shortfall in public funding to address deforestation worldwide. Fortunately, scientists and policy makers have begun thinking about new ways to align incentives so that conservation is not only desirable, but also economically more attractive than deforestation. Responding to the policy shift, private sector firms have raised large pools of capital to finance projects that reduce greenhouse gas emission levels in the atmosphere. The global carbon market was valued at €22.5 billion ($31.8 billion US) in 2006, €3.9 billion ($5.5 billion US) of which came from Clean Development Mechanism projects in developing countries. If global carbon policy can be directed toward stopping deforestation, we believe the private sector can help finance the cost-effective and sustainable protection of forests." - Avoided Deforestation Partners

Reducing carbon emissions is, of course, an enormous undertaking, and there are no quick fixes. While we're bound to see more and more research and a variety of solutions cutting emissions through preservation, one point is clear; stopping the destruction of tropical forests without hurting the local economies of populations that live near them must play a key role. 

Further Reading:

• Can Google Earth Help Save the Planet?
• Money in the Earth's Bank: Preservation of Canada's Boreal Forest
• UN Biodiversity Conference Part I: Highlighting Wildlife Loss Around the World
• UN Biodiversity Conference, Part II: Protective Steps and Future Plans
• Brazilian Government Places Some of the Rainforest Under Protection - But is it Enough?
• Ecuador: Establishing the Rights of Nature
• Forest Protection Still Thrives in BC
• People, Industry, Wildlife Fight Over Shrinking Ugandan Forest