Along the Amazon /

On a ramshackle riverboat in a tributary of the Amazon, a simple and compelling case is made for the world to pay up for protecting the rainforest:

“We are preserving the forests here. Over there, they finished off theirs and now don’t have what we do. They need for us to protect our trees to absorb carbon dioxide and put oxygen into the air. So I think we deserve something in return. If they have the resources, if they want to help us preserve all this, this would be an intelligent thing to do.”

José Monteiro, 40, fisherman and farmer, sits on the gunwale of his wooden boat as the tea-colored waters of the Uatumã River lap against its sides. He speaks softly, without stridency, and watches to see what I think.

I think he is right.

This argument circulates with increasing resonance around international conference halls and diplomatic circuits, from the G8+5 to the United Nations. Out here on the front line, from people whose livelihoods hang in the balance, it is no abstract negotiating stance.

Monteiro’s view applies to environmental hot spots everywhere, from depleted fisheries off Somalia to spreading deserts in Darfur; from Indian villagers offsetting dead-end poverty with tiger poaching to slum-dwellers in Honduras felling another bit of rainforest to build shacks likely to wash away in a mudslide.

The world is starting to fathom the cost of environmental loss, whether directly through climate change (tropical deforestation is estimated to account for a fifth of human-induced carbon dioxide emissions) or indirectly through instability and waves of refugees. But if local people cannot see benefits from the healthy ecosystems we all need, no amount of hand-wringing in the comfortable North will make them choose long-term sustainability over the immediate need to feed their kids.

That is the reality of the Amazon.

Endgame / Essays / Tim Hirsch