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Comment by gampleman | Hacker News Reader

I take a bit of issue with the "accidentally". Having been in the deforestation-stopping business for some time it has been blindingly obvious that most approaches that were being taken were completely futile until socio-economic factors were solved for.

For example we were building satellite technology to help environmental police patrol large rainforests to be able to focus on areas with offenders. One time we managed to find a hidden airstrip for drug trafficking which was cool. But most of the time the offenders were people who just needed to feed their kids - and look there is a mahogany tree just over there that will sell for $$$. So the cops will come, give them a fine, and then they will need the money even more. So the pattern continues.

Funnily enough (NB: this is hearsay) the forests were actually better off when the area was controlled by drug gangs as the people had a source of income from the cocaine.

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The same phenomenon is easily observed in modern-day Romania. There's a clear inverse correlation between the wealth of a region and the deforestation in that area.

Also notice that the price of wood is fairly stable all across EU because it's an open market after all. But the wages in Romania are far lower than the EU average so that's why the incentive to cut and sell wood is relatively higher here.

In Romania there is the issue where people still have to use wood for heating because of no access to natual gas or not enough money to buy a modern heating system, isolate the home and pay for the has, in some regions the wood is cheap in others wood is expensive.

Buying coal should be an option, no? Coal is cheaper than wood.

Yes wood is expensive you get it legally but if you have a forest 1-2 Km near your home the wood can be free. Like people own the forest, you can't cut any tree, you need to do a request and a person will come and mark some trees for you to cut (there are some criteria for what tree you can mark for cutting down). So then the expanse is cutting, moving and storing this wood .

On top of this there are people without jobs that can just cut unmarked trees.

Coal prices is also not the same in all places in the country, if you are closer to the coal source the prioce is lower because of transportation costs.

Your note about the drug gangs reminds me of the Chernobyl Exclusion Area and how well plants and wildlife are doing there. The "environment" doesn't really care about humans. The environment can do quite well without humans, thank you very much.

Aside from the whole (alleged) "organised crime setting forest fires in the exclusion zone as cover for illegal logging operations" thing [1], which releases plumes of radioactive ash and ends up with contaminated wood in people's furniture and fireplaces.

But yes, when left alone nature does reclaim the lands rather effectively.

[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/chernobyl-radioac...

There is one funny resemblance in place to a method ascribed to toddlers - diversion as a strategy. In this case it is diverting deforestation by having higher paying more economically advanced activities than raw resource gathering.

Admittedly a bit "gross" in the paternalistic/imperialist implications but the outcome would be preferred by both the natives and outsiders.

Which also fits in with worries of automation and unemployement and the ironic difficulty in finding good uses for the labor that can support the value. While there may be plenty of decent uses (picking up litter, etc) pairing the utility with a revenue stream is more difficult let alone with a good living standard.

I know of no more blatant example of this than the Haitian border. Dominican Republic side: all trees. Haitian side? grassland.

> Funnily enough (NB: this is hearsay) the forests were actually better off when the area was controlled by drug gangs as the people had a source of income from the cocaine.

Not a surprise. When animal hunting is legal, people breed animals for hunting. Some escaped extinction this way.

We must act now, and let the billionaire class play the Most Dangerous Game. It's our only chance of survival!

Or maybe we let ivory tower IYIs make the choices?

> Not a surprise. When animal hunting is legal, people breed animals for hunting. Some escaped extinction this way.

I could see this being true when the hunting is at least properly managed but in the past when it was allowed to go overboard animals did go extinct as a result. Especially when people were hunting for economic reasons.

True, does need to be managed rather than outright banned is the idea though.

Agreed, unregulated hunting for economic benefit nearly denuded the US of large mammals. I only wish people would view industrial fishing in the same way. The seas and their inhabitants need protecting.

> (NB: this is hearsay)

Also, heresy.

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