Indonesian “Greenmail”

Indonesia is demanding to be paid $5-$20 USD per hectare not to destroy its remaining forests, for the first time giving an monetary figure that they want extort from the world’s wealthier and more environmental conscious countries. Indonesia wants “big emitters” such as the United States and the European Union to pay the country to preserve its pristine rainforests.

We will ask for a compensation of $5-20 per hectare. It’s not fixed; it is open to negotiation

— Rachmat Witoelar
Indonesian Environment Minister

With a total forested area of 91 million ha (225 million acres), Indonesia could receive as much as $US1.8 billion in blackmail (greenmail?) for preserving its forests under the proposal. Indonesia will also attempt to extort a fixed price for other forms of biodiversity, including coral reefs.

So far we have not received anything for what we have done Now that there is a price tag for preservation, the amount of money we get will increase multifold.

— Rachmat Witoelar

Asking the “big emitters” to agree to the environmental extortion is made even more intolerable by the fact that Indonesia is one of the world’s top three carbon emitters according to a report sponsored by the World Bank and Britain’s development arm.

 

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4 Responses to “Indonesian “Greenmail””

  1. Christy Says:

    Are you sure this isn’t supposed to be labeled “humor”?!

  2. jonolan Says:

    Christy,

    Sadly, aside from the tenor of my language in the post, this is completely factual. Indonesia really is demanding to be paid not to harvest it’s forests!

  3. Christy Says:

    I know. =) I was teasing to make the point that beyond this being depressing and maddening, the content of this post should belong in the “humor” section, not in any category related to reality. Argh. What’s next? This is like a child who has never grown up – expecting to be rewarded for good behavior rather than simply doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. “What will you give me to clean my room?” the child beguiles, implicitly exposing the assumption that good behavior should be rewarded.

  4. Indonesian BioWarfare | Reflections From a Murky Pond Says:

    […] government, in an ongoing attempt to extort wealth from the civilized world, has moved on from eco-terrorism to a particularly vile form of biological warfare, the withholding critical samples of the H5N1 […]

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