As we all know, forests are not only just natural habitats of plants and animals,

they also provide us a stream of services - stabilizing the soil and helping
prevent erosion, storing carbon dioxid while emitting oxygen and cooling the
planet – that most of the people get for free.

However, the majority of forests, especially tropical rain forests, are located in
poor countries. Paradoxically, there is a fact that the more prosperous a society
is, the more likely it is to protect its natural environment. Conversely, less
developed nations are prone to exploit and even destroy their natural resources
in order to increase country’s prosperity. According to the World Wildlife Fund
for Nature (WWF) over 43 million hectares, an area roughly the size of
Morocco, was lost in between 2004 and 2017.

Two questions are therefore raised: “Do we need to reimagine forests as a public
utility like water, electricity and should people in the richer world pay poor
countries to protect their forests?”

The idea is quite logical and easy at the beginning, because the main reasons for
deforestation are agricultural expansion and wood extraction to make money.
Some projects have been launched and the statistics which were published are
possitive as well. The governments of some developed nations like Norway,
Germany and the UK also announce that they will take part in. It would be a
win-win for both rich and poor nations, because we would all benefit from
preserving those forests, which honeslty provide a bargain climate service, a
quite cheap sollution to reduce emissions.
On the other hand there are other questions should be asked: “How those money
have been used? Have they been used effectively and for the right purposes?”,
because many of the developing nations which own most of the world’s forest
also have the highest rates of corruption. Our money are simply payments for
services, so we could not be attach any condition or have right to say what the
governvents of those countries have to do.
Furthermore, the protect of forests could lead to scareceness of their products,
which increases the prices of them. The high profits then could be the motive for
illegal deforestation. Enforcing laws that protect forests is because of this reson
not only costly, but also takes up money, political space and administrative
capacity.
In conclusion, I would like to say that it is still a good idea. But we need to
know on which purpose are we spending our money and the plan have to be
made particularly and precisely.