Can non-timber forest products help conserve the Amazon?
Guest editorial, Emily Taylor and Paul F. Torrence, Amazon Fund July 20, 2009 GA_googleFillSlot(“news_300x250_atf_premium”); Industrial-scale logging and resource exploitation continue to plague the South American rainforests, contributing to their systematic destruction. Today, indigenous inhabitants and other local residents of the rainforests and their surrounding areas, faced with the enormous pressures of the global economy, often find themselves in a crucible. Many of their opportunities for supporting themselves and their families financially involve logging or other large-scale operations that deplete and ultimately decimate the forests. In order to make even a marginal living, local people often find themselves forced to participate in the destruction of the very ecosystems that they live in and depend on. In fact, a recent study[1] in the prestigious journal Science has shown that while deforestation (in the Brazilian Amazon) generates some short-term benefits, it fails in th
