The IMF operates outside of public scrutiny, releasing little information and avoiding critical public participation in program design and evaluation. Taxpayer money should not be spent in this secretive way. Stabilization policies that require governments to sharply raise interest rates increase environmental destruction. For example, interest rates in Bolivia run as high as 17 percent, while the value of the average mahogany stand grows by only 5 percent or 6 percent each year. As a result, loggers cut trees as quickly as possible and reinvest their profits.
Stabilization policies encourage rapid exploitation of natural resources.
Devaluation and tariff- reduction policies that are part of stabilization programs increase export production, especially in sectors such as mining, logging, and monocrop agriculture. As environmental costs are not internalized, this results in rapid, unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. Stabilization programs cause the poor to turn to natural resources as a means of survival. People are forced into sensitive areas, increasing deforestation and soil erosion, and are driven to unsustainable practices, such as illegal hunting of rare species. The IMF does not consider how its programs impact on the environment, since it is a closed institution not open to outside evaluation.