Land(trust) Ho! What's at Stake in an Acre of Rain Forest?

Caption: "Relax, we're from Conservation Inc."

Purchasing acres of tropical forest online for conservation has become a quick 'n' easy way for Western consumers to appease their carbon guilt.

As the Guardian reports today, for the low price of 50 British pounds (approx. 100 US greenbacks these days), an internet surfer can secure an acre of rain forest with a few quick mouse clicks. There are even Facebook applications (such as the (Lil) Green Patch, with over 614,000 users) that let social networkers collectively sure up millions of square feet in conservation, simply by sending their friends free, gleeful, virtual "plants."

But are such innocent and good-intended actions in fact propagating a wave of "eco-colonialism"? (See cartoon above).

Those who've been paying attention - people like environmental geographers and champions of indigenous land rights - argue that this light-green approach to lowering CO2 emissions may well be low on ethics.

By purchasing wilderness in developing countries, conservationists risk stripping the land of its productive economic capacity for the local people. The results range from poaching and encroachment by the locals on parkland, to displacement of entire communities.

The contested issue has been (as) hot (as the climate) amongst conservation biologists and their critics for decades. In 2004, WorldWatch's Mac Chapin summed up the critiques and sparked a hearty debate by calling on the major international conservation orgs to work more closely with local people.

This weekend, The Guardian brought this dialogue out of its former hiding place in ivory towers and indigenous rights strategy meetings, opening it up to public discussion with two differing points of view. The first holds that conservation-from-afar is ethical when the local community receives fair compensation and retains management powers. The second counters that those conditions can't realistically be met until communities in developing nations secure stronger land rights. In the absence of such stability, conservation money usually ends up in the hands of "corrupt politicians, criminals and polluting industry."

I agree that the issue of property rights is central to this debate. But it's not just a question of working out local land rights - it's a property issue on a global scale.

The question is, who has more "stake" in an acre of rain forest? The local Amazonian who depends on that forest for his or her daily livelihood? Or the Western consumer who's local climate is regulated by the ecosystem services of a forest thousands of miles away? Who has more to lose?

A second question gets out of the realm of ethics and into practicality: Which approach will best achieve the intended environmental effects?

And finally - who gets to decide?

Eco-colonialism, we may not be able to avoid you entirely... but we will try.