![](iucn_images/tigerruby.gif)
Is Buying Rain Forest Land
Such a Good Idea?
By Jennifer Wong, Angèle Marchand, TG youth journalists
Buying rain forests to conserve and protect, has many positive and
negative aspects. Willem Ferwerda, rain forest specialist from
IUCN Netherlands "We can use the forest and its resources, but in
a sustainable way." If people recognised and acted upon it, guards
would be unnecessary and the forest wouldn't suffer its current
deterioration. Resources unlawfully taken include lumber, monkeys,
and medicines from plants. The Kakamega forest on Uganda border
and Kenya is approximately forty thousand hectares in size and
surrounded by twenty schools.
Unfortunately, he says the Kenyan government only employs two
official guards to protect this vast forest of valuable resources.
This lack of protection enables the pressure of forty to fifty
thousand surrounding inhabitants to steal and destroy the forest
elements.
Changing selfish attitudes remembering the Native people who
originally lived on the land, requires working to change this
attitude "working with the people rather than against them," he
says.
![](iucn_images/parrothead.gif)
Fencing-in the rain forest is far too expensive and ineffective in
keeping people out. There aren't sufficient funds to buy large
amounts of land and employing enough guards. This suggestion has a
few positive elements. This entirely depends on the new land
owners intentions. The probability of conserving land increases
with the size of a company's fund. With this sort of action, the
reduction of "free-fall" may occur. Having genuine land investors
with conservation motives will prevent buyers that misuse and
abuse the land.
Willem Ferwerda said it best of all that, "We must recognize that
without these forests we cannot survive. Without the trees we
won't have water and oxygen." Ferwerda suggests that the first
step is to understand that "we need the forest more than the
forest needs us."