[owebmaster]

Your answer doesn't make sense. The Amazon and others protected sites in Brazil are a much larger area than 8%. If we preserved only 8%, Brazil would be the richest country in the world. Maybe the US devastated an Amazon to get there.

[darkmighty]

Wat. The Central-West region of Brazil which is primarily agricultural produces less than 10% of Brazil's GDP. I'd say given the possibly disastrous local climate consequences from destroying most of the Amazon, and similar total area, we could say that at absolute best case we might achieve a similar gain. Which would grow our economy by at most 10%.

Destroying the world's most biodiverse ecosystem (seriously, read some statistics on number of species in the Amazon -- it's mind boggling) to grow the GDP by 10% is not just incredibly selfish (supposedly exchanging a global treasure for national gain). It's not even the best for our own interests; it's myopic, greedy, inhumane. Even the actual direct economic value of scientific research with industrial applications such as biomimicry research, plants with applications in medicine and food industry, etc. would completely dwarf a one time 10% gain. And then there's the hardly measurable value of lost knowledge and natural richness.

Don't be the child exclaiming "But my brother was greedy too!". This is our treasure, and our responsibility.

[eloff]

It would seem to me that the Amazon is worth much more than that left intact. Australia's Great Barrier Reef contributes 6.5 billion to the local economy each year through tourism and fishing. The Amazon could potentially be worth much more in tourism value. Not to mention untapped value as a source for undiscovered pharmaceuticals. It also generates 75% of it's own rain - which is critical to the agriculture in the region as well as all these hydroelectric projects.

If greed ends up winning and most of the forest is destroyed, Brazil will find itself without a national treasure, and likely be economically worse off for it.

[nitwit005]

Chopping down or burning a bunch of forest hardly seems like it's going to make Brazil rich.

Some of the worlds major economic success stories are countries with few natural resources, Taiwan being a common example. At the same time, there are a number of countries heavily exploiting their resources, yet seemingly without alleviating their poverty.

There are plenty of places trying to re-forest, which also suggests that you might get stuck with the long term cost of trying to undo the damage done.

[maxerickson]

A great deal of the land managed by the US Forest Service was clear cut before it became national forest.

In Michigan we have a few little pockets of real old growth forest and national forests the size of a small country.