Whose rainforest is it anyway?

Today's NY Times looks at concerns about whether conservation efforts in the Amazon rainforest are really the new colonialism. Brazilians seem to harbor some combination of conspiracy theories that see how corporations work through NGOs to gain control of the resources of the Amazon. But it places groups, like the WWF or TNC, in the particularly awkward situation of being scrutinized as tools of the Western world. One author describes how the Green Mafia is trying to limit Brazil's economic growth and prowess on the world stage by having the NGOs control the potential timber and mineral resources of the region.

“Everything indicates that the environmental and indigenous problems are merely pretexts,” said a recent Brazilian military intelligence report, which was made available to The New York Times by a Brazilian who received a copy and who was concerned at the views expressed. “The main NGO’s are, in reality, pieces in the great game in which the hegemonic powers are engaged to maintain and augment their domination. Certainly, they serve as cover for those secret services.”

Things are so bad that military intelligence reports are using terms like hegemony. Some of this is just a matter of percetpion, but some of it also recognizes a larger concern about the fairness of environemtnal responses and raises key questions about who benefits the most and who pays the highest costs when local solutions address problems that are global.