Fighting poverty accidentally stopped deforestation
I take a bit of issue with the "accidentally". Having been in the deforestation-stopping business for some time it has been blindingly obvious that most approaches that were being taken were completely futile until socio-economic factors were solved for.For example we were building satellite technology to help environmental police patrol large rainforests to be able to focus on areas with offenders. One time we managed to find a hidden airstrip for drug trafficking which was cool. But most of the time the offenders were people who just needed to feed their kids - and look there is a mahogany tree just over there that will sell for $$$. So the cops will come, give them a fine, and then they will need the money even more. So the pattern continues.Funnily enough (NB: this is hearsay) the forests were actually better off when the area was controlled by drug gangs as the people had a source of income from the cocaine.