TTJ editor Mike Jeffree has had a letter published in The Daily Telegraph in response to a recent column by the Prince of Wales on the subject of tropical deforestation.
Prince Charles announced the launch of a website for his Rainforests Project in the Telegraph on June 5. He was also debating the subject on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme a few days earlier.
Prince Charles has suggested halting deforestation at a possible cost of US$30bn, with international governments, businesses and consumers contributing through a mechanism enabling poorer countries to value their trees.
But in his letter, Mike said Prince Charles was “missing the wood for the trees” and that similar schemes previously proposed have been estimated as costing hundreds, rather than tens of millions of dollars.
He also wrote that it was an issue whether developing countries wanted to be dictated to by the West on how they manage their forestry.
“An alternative is to help them manage rainforests sustainably to produce timber. Perhaps a proportion of forest should be put off-limits – there are already funds available via the World Bank to assist this.
“But if certified sustainable timber is developed in the rest, it provides a financial reason for the forest to be preserved in perpetuity, while leaving locals to live the way they want and shape their own economic destiny.”
