Broad paragraphs of uncertainty around a line » rainforest http://danmichael.heggoe.net Where is Dan Michael? Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:58:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Where to get your timber? http://danmichael.heggoe.net/2007/10/where-to-get-your-timber/ http://danmichael.heggoe.net/2007/10/where-to-get-your-timber/#comments Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:55:25 +0000 Dan Michael http://danmichael.heggoe.net/2007/10/where-to-get-your-timber/ Let’s say you need to import timber for some reason. Although there are a lot of timber in Norway too, there are not very many species, so certainly some branches need to import their timber. Well, where should you import it from? From one of the few remaining rainforests that contains the largest biodiversity on the planet? Hmm… is that a good idea? Well, so you just decided to import your timber from a rainforest because you had to have that color (and you couldn’t fix it with funny chemicals :)). So what rainforest do you choose? Maybe that in Burma? Hmm.. is that a good idea? The military dictatorship there has monopol on selling rainforest timber, so that means you don’t just destroy the rainforest, but you also support a military dictatorship. That’s killing two birds with one stone, you might think – if you are one of the Norwegian companies that import rainforest timber from Burma… or probably you didn’t think?

]]> http://danmichael.heggoe.net/2007/10/where-to-get-your-timber/feed/ 0 Debt for carbon http://danmichael.heggoe.net/2007/05/debt-for-carbon/ http://danmichael.heggoe.net/2007/05/debt-for-carbon/#comments Wed, 02 May 2007 10:41:19 +0000 Dan Michael http://danmichael.heggoe.net/2007/05/debt-for-carbon/ Maria is at a debt conference in Equador this week and tipped me about this very interesting case.

Ecuador is burdened with over 15 billion dollars of external debt. The Ecuadorian state-owned oil company Petroecuador have just discovered the largest untapped oil field in Equador (ITT), estimated to contain ~ one billion barrels of oil equivalent. With todays oil price, that is worth ~ 70 billion USD. Of course, there are also lots of costs linked with oil production (Petrobar estimates 5 billion USD), but still tapping the field would make a huge difference for the Equadorian economy!

Unluckily the oil field is located in the Equadorian rainforest, part of the Amazon-belt. But the Equadorian government have come up with an original solution: they will leave the oil field untapped if the international community offers to compensate the country with half of the forecasted lost revenues! President Correa estimates the compensation at around .35 billion USD per year.

“Ecuador doesn’t ask for charity,” said Correa, “but does ask that the international community share in the sacrifice and compensates us with at least half of what our country would receive, in recognition of the environmental benefits that would be generated by keeping this oil underground.”.

Read more at Environmental Newswire

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