Said another way, a financial instrument that provides local employment can achieve most conservation goals. Sustainable forest systems have the best chance for success where good educational and scientific infrastructure coexists with secure land tenure and no restrictive trade export laws obtain. Real returns for sustainable forest systems can be high. But there are a few items that preclude average investment channels. These problems have solutions.
Capital is available if the returns are attractive.
Ethical investment funds and insurance companies or pension funds with long term obligations can be approached. This means that developed countries ought to ban, after a reasonable time, any imports of those products not certified to be sustainably produced. Bans on tropical timbers, as they now exist, are counterproductive and wrong-headed. If the forest is to be preserved it must produce value in the currency of the times. Trade barriers must come down.