The conservation movement in the United States has grown in the last few decades. An outgrowth, of this movement, is the ability of some producers to market products for a higher price, if they can claim that the raw materials of the product were obtained in a manner which is safe, does not cause pollution, or saves an unblemished portion of the world's ecology. The local people living in, and around, the rain forests need an economic reason not to destroy the resources of the rain forests, but to harvest the natural bounty within them. By exploiting the "green" movements and helping connect the indigenous people to the international markets, the conservation organizations have the means to impact the amount of rain forest which will be saved. Economics can provide the incentive to save the rain forest.
Saving the rain forests has become a celebrity cause; it is politically and socially correct to do things which will save the rain forest from destruction by loggers and slash-and-burn techniques used by farmers to clear the land. At the forefront of this movement, are nonprofit corporations. These nonprofit Corporations have been set up, in the United States, to market products and raw materials acquired from the rain forest, in ways that can sustain production, without harming the total biodiversity of the rain forest. These products are marketed to producers and consumers in the developed countries. To succeed in saving the rain forests, the economic consequences of setting aside large reserves of land, from human intervention, have to be taken into account. The populations of Latin America are growing, the economic poverty is rampant. The local people will continue to invade virgin rain forests and clear the land unless that land can be shown to be more valuable as intact forest than as farm land.
The world functions on the capitalistic system; capitalism works either on a individual level or for communities or ...