– In spite of the fact that my wife and I are working our way towards working in land conservation in future years, I have had strong doubts about many of the land conservation efforts going on today. Like, for instance, when green groups band together and buy large swaths of rain forest and put it all into non-development trusts in coordination with the local governments.
– It all sounds so good on paper but what few folks think about, in my opinion, is that over the long term these ‘paper’ agreements will only have force and be honored so long as the structures (groups, governments, and trusts) behind them continue to have traction and power. If the world begins to get unstable and wars are breaking out over resources and it all gets even more dog-eat-dog than it is now, none of these agreements ‘in perpetuity’ are going to be respected.
– Hell, the Brazilian and Indonesian governments, in perfect health and stability, cannot keep the loggers and miners out of their forests. Who can imagine that if folks are starving, say, in Guyana and the central government there is on the ropes, that some idealistic agreement with green groups based far away on the other side of the planet to only allow eco-tourism activities in the local forests will be honored?
Yeah, right. I think the words ‘in perpetuity’ are going to be ever more, shall we say, flexible as time goes on.
– Along this line comes this excellent piece from the Blog, Only in it for the Gold, wherein Michael discusses how ‘in perpetuity’ is getting a bit shorter in Wyoming…
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
To “Perpetuity Shorter in Wyoming“… ➡
