The Financial Truth About Deforestation

Anyone raising concerns about deforestation is likely to find that people will try and shout them down with claims about “standing in the way of progress” and “not living in the real world” financially. But it is a little known fact that by keeping a thriving rainforest rather than taking what you can get from it and leaving it a wreck, you can make more money. This is something that needs to be said loud when arguing with an enviro-skeptic. It needs to be said loud, and often. The statistics are telling.

Recent statistics have shown that if rainforest land is converted to allow the raising of cattle, the land and operations will yield $60 an acre. If timber is harvested from the same land, it will be worth $400 an acre. However, if the same land is used for harvesting, taking its renewable resources in a sustainable way, it will yield more than $2400 per acre. So now who’s not living in the real world? Now who is standing in the way of progress?

The fact is that it is by pointing to the financial viability of saving the rainforests that the debate can be won conclusively. It takes a little bit more preparation to harvest natural resources than it does to cut them down and sell them off, that much is true. But once the preparation work has been done, there is only one side of the argument that is ignoring financial reality and it is not the environmental movement.