Brit Press, SciDev.Net: To preserve a big rainforest in Guyana - with private investment.

Published: April 9, 2008, 11:44 am

This morning The Tracker scanned the offerings from SciDev.Net, the non-profit news service aimed mainly at outlets in developing nations, and found one that intrigued and perplexed. Reporter Neil Marks writes of a “new investment model” being tried in the South American nation of Guyana “that could generate billions of dollars for developing nations and preserve forests.” Great, I thought, maybe worth posting as a new conservation tactic among serious, well-connected (rich or corporate) environmentalists. It has to do with capturing some of the economic value of rainforests — for their services cleaning water, stabilizing climate, buffering flood waters, direct economic benefits of sustainable uses, etc. The money would go toward maintaining the forest and its human community. The one involved here, the Iwokrama, is huge - a million acres. Problem is, how this works looks elusive. How do investors get any payoff? What’s to prevent “free

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