[HN Gopher] Stop irreversible damage to the Amazon
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       Stop irreversible damage to the Amazon
        
       Author : musha68k
       Score  : 133 points
       Date   : 2023-04-20 14:23 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.junglekeepers.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.junglekeepers.org)
        
       | ploden wrote:
       | Donated! Direct land acquisition by nonprofits is the future of
       | conservation. I did the math once, and with the annual budget of
       | The Nature Conservancy, you could purchase 20% of Nebraska in a
       | perfectly reasonable amount of time.
        
         | Arrath wrote:
         | I am very proud to have been involved in the Nature
         | Conservancy's effort to restore wetlands in Oregon. I
         | completely agree that land acquisition is a great path forward,
         | as long as the longevity of that acquisition can be secured.
         | 
         | https://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/10/prweb565374.htm
        
       | ajot wrote:
       | Donating money for someone to buy land is a big no for me.
       | Privatisation of land to some benefactor doesn't seem to be the
       | best strategy for preservation. How do you know ownership will
       | not be transferred in the future?
       | 
       | Also, why is it we never see a "reverse damage done for centuries
       | to european and north american forests" NGO? Why do you always
       | think of the Amazon? Leave peruvians, bolivians, brasilians, etc
       | alone. And stop using coal to generate electricity, thank you
       | very much.
        
         | ruined wrote:
         | >Also, why is it we never see a "reverse damage done for
         | centuries to european and north american forests" NGO?
         | 
         | north american forest defense orgs are prosecuted as domestic
         | terrorists. there are a couple "tree planting" startups but
         | mostly they seem to be timber company greenwashing
        
         | mijamo wrote:
         | There is a lot of reforestation happening in Europe. In France
         | for instance the low time for forest was in the 17th century
         | and since then the forest surface has doubled and is steadily
         | increasing.
         | 
         | You could also note that now Japan has more forests than Brazil
         | in percentage of the territory while having a much higher
         | population density, and that Brazil used to have double as much
         | forest than Japan around 100 years ago.
        
         | mitthrowaway2 wrote:
         | > Also, why is it we never see a "reverse damage done for
         | centuries to european and north american forests" NGO?
         | 
         | You'll never see if you never look!
         | 
         | https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/
        
           | burkaman wrote:
           | Also https://planetwild.com/, which is very early but has
           | been focused on Europe so far.
        
             | khrbrt wrote:
             | And Mossy Earth: https://www.mossy.earth/
             | 
             | I'm a big fan of their YT channel:
             | https://www.youtube.com/@MossyEarth for well produced
             | videos on their various restoration projects across Europe.
             | Very inspiring for things I'd love to start where I live.
             | 
             | We need to reform zoning to reduce suburban and exurban
             | sprawl and there is no shortage of disturbed land that
             | needs to be rehabilitated.
        
         | BurningFrog wrote:
         | There is really no future proof strategy.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | redprince wrote:
       | Considering the massive scale of deforestation going on in the
       | Amazonas, this feels like trying to put out a forest fire by
       | spitting into it.
       | 
       | "In the Legal Amazon, deforestation reached 356 km2 in March
       | 2023, according to DETER data."
       | https://www.wwf.org.br/?85360/Deforestation-alerts-remain-hi...
       | 
       | 365 km2 are 87,970 acres. And that's just Brazil. The goal of the
       | junglekeepers is to save 300,000 acres. They are at it for more
       | than 10 years now.
        
         | jandrese wrote:
         | Seems to me like you could do a lot to frustrate loggers with
         | 300k acres of land, especially if you are strategic in the
         | purchases and do things like buying a giant ring of land (or
         | more realistically a strip that has natural boundaries like
         | rivers and mountains on the other sides) and then disallowing
         | the construction of roads through it.
        
           | the_lonely_road wrote:
           | Who is guarding the land? Does it have cameras on it that you
           | can use to see how the land looks? Feels like a waste of
           | money if the authorities can't protect the land.
        
             | jandrese wrote:
             | Probably commercial satellite imagery. The protections
             | would have to be legal, IE suing the logging companies for
             | trespassing on your land and "vandalizing" it.
             | 
             | It would be way too dangerous to do something like claiming
             | that the company was dumping all of that perfectly good
             | logging equipment on your land and helpfully "cleaning it
             | up" by loading them on trailers and driving off.
        
               | mistrial9 wrote:
               | a lot of the Amazon is under semi-permanent cloud cover..
               | you need something else to "see" .. various groups have
               | been 'monitoring' the ever-increasing logging for more
               | than 20 years already..
        
               | jgilias wrote:
               | SAR is a thing, works perfectly well through clouds, and
               | is pretty easy to use to detect deforestation.
        
           | bluGill wrote:
           | The government will just use eminent domain to take the land
           | needed for roads. You can be annoying to loggers, but you
           | can't stop them that way.
        
             | yamtaddle wrote:
             | Lots of places, they wouldn't even need eminent domain. Not
             | sure what the situation's like in Brazil, but even in the
             | US with its unusually-strong notions of what "owning land"
             | means, trying to do cute shit like that is often not
             | allowed, for obvious reasons. Easements are A Thing. You
             | might get away with it if no-one with resources opposes
             | you, but if they do, you're likely to lose in court.
        
               | jandrese wrote:
               | Yeah, you'll probably lose in the end, but at the same
               | time you make logging more expensive and difficult. This
               | is a pretty standard playbook for environmental
               | activists, for better or worse.
        
               | MichaelZuo wrote:
               | I have never heard of a case where such a scheme,
               | blocking road access with a narrow strip of property,
               | lasted longer than 48 hours in the U.S.
               | 
               | Can you link to any examples?
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | jandrese wrote:
               | Marvin Heemeyer, the Killdozer guy, felt that he had been
               | wronged in a case exactly like this, with the landowner
               | cutting off access to his property.
        
             | rch wrote:
             | One of the goals is to work with loggers to provide an
             | alternative path to prosperity.
        
               | kevviiinn wrote:
               | Perhaps they could learn a new skill such as coding. I
               | hear Python is popular
        
               | tough wrote:
               | Python in the Jungle got a whole new meaning today
        
           | jgilias wrote:
           | From what I've read about logging in the Amazon this wouldn't
           | do much. Basically no one would care about your deed unless
           | you have boots on the ground there.
        
       | VoodooJuJu wrote:
       | >20 coffees to save the Amazon
       | 
       | Which 20 coffees? 20 Starbucks coffees? 20 no-name donut shop
       | coffees? 20 instant-scoop grocery store coffees? If coffees are
       | to become a bona fide currency, we're going to need more precise
       | denominations here.
       | 
       | Or hopefully we can just stop with the coffee-pricing analogies
       | because it's getting ridiculous and your would-be customers think
       | you sound ridiculous. It's outdated sales-talk.
        
         | yamtaddle wrote:
         | $100, so, $5/coffee.
         | 
         | That'd be _extremely_ expensive for a normal coffee, even at
         | 2023 prices and assuming some rip-off place like Starbucks or
         | quite-fancy cafes that actually put some of the high price into
         | getting excellent beans. It 's unthinkably high for home-made
         | coffee. You can get extremely nice beans and not hit $2/coffee.
         | 
         | $5 is close to the cost of a hot caffeinated milkshake, though.
        
           | blackoil wrote:
           | Starbucks sell 4 Billion of them, so they aren't impractical
           | to set the benchmark price.
        
             | lotsofpulp wrote:
             | I assume a lot of those 4B are sugary dessert drinks
             | containing coffee, not what is colloquially referred to as
             | a "coffee". At least I hope.
        
         | Magi604 wrote:
         | Towards the bottom they say $100 = 20 coffees, so they're are
         | pricing a coffee as $5 per cup.
         | 
         | The first Google hit for "Junglekeepers Charity Rating" brings
         | up this link claiming they are a scam:
         | 
         | https://www.complaintsboard.com/junglekeepers-scam-charity-c...
        
           | jandrese wrote:
           | That review reads like it was written by someone with a major
           | axe to grind. I don't know if these guys are legit, but I'm
           | not going to trust only this one haters opinion on it.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | mannycalavera42 wrote:
           | and in the same page there is user comment that says:
           | 
           | This non-profit is not a scam. They have done some well
           | documented work to protect the Las Piedras Region, they are
           | running a ranger program covering 55,000+ acres of rainforest
           | working with the local communities and have partner with
           | established philanthropies. See for instance the involvement
           | of Age Of Union: https://www.ageofunion.com/feature/film-the-
           | heart-of-a-missi... or some of the features about the work on
           | ABC: https://youtu.be/8FAbqkaI9HY
           | 
           | Criticism is useful, but perhaps researching thoroughly
           | before make wild claims like these can help. I invite people
           | to do their own research.
           | 
           | -\\_(tsu)_/-
           | 
           | your move
        
             | tdeck wrote:
             | That link 404s. Also, it's pretty suspicious that the
             | website has no information about the nonprofit entity or
             | its officers. Is it a 501(c)3? I can't tell. So I can't
             | look it up on Charity Navigator or anything. It's very
             | sketchy.
        
               | gs17 wrote:
               | Came up on Charity Navigator for me, searching by name.
               | No rating, but it says they are a 501(c)(3).
               | 
               | https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/881863507
        
             | Magi604 wrote:
             | I didn't say I agreed with what was in the link. Your move?
        
         | aramachandran7 wrote:
         | I disagree. You're getting caught in the semantics; the notion
         | of 20 $5 coffees makes sense and is an easy and relatable way
         | to reframe $100.
        
           | pathsjs wrote:
           | I don't know, coffee here costs 1EUR everywhere
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | $100 is pretty relatable as well though
        
           | throw_pm23 wrote:
           | I make coffee at home, from freshly roasted, freshly ground,
           | high quality stuff. It comes out to around 5-10 cents a cup.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | antibasilisk wrote:
       | you're only 30 years too late, that must be some kind of record
        
       | foo42 wrote:
       | I just heard about this charity the other day listening to a
       | fascinating episode of the Lex Fridman podcast with Paul Rosolie
       | who seems very involved or possibly the founder.
       | 
       | Fwiw he came across as very genuine (given some comments on here
       | were skeptical of the charity)
        
         | iamgoat wrote:
         | Paul describing the process:                 56:2656:28 They
         | cut the forest, burn the forest.       56:2856:30 And then they
         | run water through the sand.       56:3056:33 And the sand
         | particles have bits of gold in it, not chunks.       56:3356:37
         | But just little almost microscopic flecks of gold.
         | 56:3756:40 And then they use the mercury to bind that.
         | 56:4056:41 And then they burn off the mercury.       56:4156:43
         | And that vapor goes up into the clouds.       56:4356:46 So
         | just like everything else, it's all connected down there
         | 56:4656:47 and then rains down into the rivers.
         | 56:4756:50 And so the people in the region are having birth
         | defects
         | 
         | Destruction visible from above:
         | https://www.google.com/maps/@-12.8121497,-70.1009866,76878m/...
        
           | 29athrowaway wrote:
           | They should mine bitcoin instead.
        
       | surgical_fire wrote:
       | This is cute, but I'm skeptical of it working in practice.
       | 
       | Most mining and logging operations in Amazon rainforest is
       | illegal anyway. I don't think they will care that the land is
       | owned unless you can protect it somehow (including use of force.
       | The rule of law hardly applies in those regions).
        
       | rabf wrote:
       | https://youtu.be/gPfriiHBBek
       | 
       | Lex Fridman interview with the founder.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | Imho the real thing we need to do is raze so many European towns
       | and cities and return them to nature. That continent continues to
       | deforest and it is carbon costly to inhabit. It is time for
       | Germany to depopulate.
       | 
       | They've simply been grandfathered in, but the climate costs of
       | their past actions have accumulated a debt that can only be paid
       | by dissolving the country.
        
         | ajhurliman wrote:
         | Starting with your house, right?
        
           | renewiltord wrote:
           | Haha, that's exactly the question the South Americans are
           | asking of Europeans who have denuded the land they are in and
           | now demand others don't.
           | 
           | Take the beam out of your eye.
        
           | pvaldes wrote:
           | Both houses in the same planet maybe?
           | 
           | Everything is connected perhaps?
           | 
           | Clouds don't turn away at the frontier.
        
         | xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote:
         | > That continent continues to deforest
         | 
         | "In 2020, the EU had an estimated 159 million hectares of
         | forests. Their area has increased by almost 10% since 1990 (145
         | million hectares)"
         | 
         | https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/e...
        
           | renewiltord wrote:
           | That is clever choice of start and end
           | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2438-y.epdf
           | 
           | With nothing to say of the fact that having pillaged our
           | planet for hundreds of years, they make some pitiful
           | concessions.
           | 
           | It is like if a man stole a million dollars from you and then
           | gave you a dollar a day for twenty years and claimed you've
           | been the beneficiary.
           | 
           | End European cities so that Earth may flourish again.
        
         | mucle6 wrote:
         | This implies we value trees and wildlife more than humans.
        
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