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Can Money Grow on Trees?


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Subjects: Business Studies, Economics, Environment, Finance, Global Issues, International Relations, International Trade, Law, Political Science, Rain Forest, South American Studies, Sustainability

Grade Level: SrH-Adult
Producer: BBC
Closed Captioned: No		 Running Time: 28 mins
Country of Origin: Great Britain
Study Guide: No
Copyright Date: 2008
Available in French: No

The riches of the world's largest forest are obvious – spread across eight South American countries and French Guyana, it is the one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth. It produces vapour which falls as rain within the region, and is estimated to hold 60-90 billion tonnes of carbon in its vegetation, helping to combat climate change. However, the rainforest is being cut down at the fastest rate for three years, because the fact remains that the trees are worth more dead than alive. In fact, just one truckload of their rare hardwood can be worth about £40,000, and the land they sit upon is much more valuable as farmland, used to graze cattle and grow crops. Traditional green campaigns to save the rainforest have run up against these realities, making it difficult to achieve a real breakthrough. But now there's a new plan. It takes the principles of economics and applies them to the standing trees, calculating an exact monetary value for the ecosytem services they provide.

The film travels to Brazil to meet the scientists who hope that the world will finally realise that if the rainforest is to be saved, it has to be paid for. It also reports from the Iwokrama reserve in Guyana, whose 370,000 hectares of rainforest have been gifted to the commonwealth. There, UK entrepreneurs are already banking on being able to make others pay for the forest's eco services. One London-based venture capital group has even taken a licence and plans to raise a $100 million bond on the reserve in the hope that when the standing forest's true contribution to the planet is recognised, Guyana will be able to charge for those services and the investors will make a hefty return.

So is it time to let capitalism take over and redesign the economy so that services the rainforest provides are reflected in the money in the economy? Or, as the film asks, can money really be made to grow on trees?

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