Investing in the Virgin Forest

Even in critical moments, industrial and transportation colossals look at environmental politics as an option for consolidating the market and keeping their clients loyal. The Kyoto Protocol identifies two main mechanisms, available to various countries, for reaching the prescribed limits of emissions: the “joint implementation” mechanism, according to which a developed country can obtain reductions for emissions, by financing projects that limit the emissions in other developed countries, or those with their economy in a transition phase and the “clean development mechanisms” commonly called CDM, that permit the more developed countries to receive credit for emissions in developing countries and trading on those emissions. Some studies have estimated that approximately 15% of the world’s emissions of greenhouse gasses could be reduced through “forest tolerable practices.” Thanks to trading on emissions, a new market has been opened that permits, in practice, breathing C02 on payment. Some environmentalist movements protest these politics that would give the nations that pollute the most a sort of escape route for continuing to pollute. The important thing, however, is the result and if, all things considered, this road permits a reduction in emissions, it’s hard to see why this road shouldn’t be taken.
At this point, the sale of “carbon credit” is a consolidated practice, and many corporations, to attract the attention of the mass media and an environmentally sensitive public, invest in nature in exchange for carbon dioxide.
In 1997 Costa Rica was the first country in the world to transform its forests into a deposit for carbon with the creation of appropriate titles. The project, called “Carfix”, regards forest preservation, the confiscation of carbon, the reduction in erosion and the degradation of water. Already the first 200,000 tons of stock were offered in the first year, and then acquired for 10 dollars a ton by consortium of Scandinavian companies, amongst which are ABB, Kavaener Energy and EEG. An American consortium in Bolivia has invested 9.5 million dollars for the right to disforest 640,000 hectares of forest. Even General Motors, who is now risking closure, promised to allocate 10 million dollars for the recovery of a portion of Brazilian rain forest. The list of companies that are financing reforestation and preservation is growing more and more and even includes airlines, small transportation companies, and even non-polluting factories. We see, therefore, that the carbon credits market foreseen by the Kyoto protocol has not only involved the governments interested in respecting the levels that were imposed on them, but even the industries themselves. This has developed an emerging market of international commerce in credits by individuals, based also on single internal markets. The growing need could also boost speculation, provoking a rise in prices by withholding credits for “banking”, or rather, for being issued on the market in the period after 2010-2012.
Considering the fact that the CDMs will be the first mechanisms to be used within the Kyoto protocol, these will determine the initial emission price which it is estimated could arrive at €35/t CO2 (35 euro per ton of CO2).
Each hectare of rain forest retains 15 tons of carbon dioxide. At the moment, the market price per ton of retained carbon dioxide (carbon credit) is €20 per ton, and as we said before, we expect that it will increase to €35 per ton by 2012. Therefore, a hectare of forest can presently earn about 300 euro a year, and could render 525 by 2012. Today, the carbon credit market is limited to the reforested areas, but it is foreseen that before 2012 the carbon credits will be extended also to the protected areas. In fact, it’s obvious that nothing is gained by giving credits for 100 hectares of reforestation, if you then deforest somewhere else.
Investing in rain forest areas, therefore, can become an excellent business deal, or rather an excellent speculation, if we take into consideration the actual value of acquiring land that goes from €50 to €800 per hectare.
If we consider Brazil as an example, only 1.99% of the forests are protected with permanently preserved areas; the Brazilian Amazon, with 369 million hectares, has only 3.6% of its area under environmental protection.
The real business is therefore neither deforesting nor substituting tropical forests with fields of wheat and sugar cane for producing ethanol, but preserving the green lung that allows us to breathe oxygen even in the future and guaranteeing drinking water supplies.

COMMERCIAL OFFER
We offer 1050 hectares of virgin forest in the Amazon with great possibilities of developing eco-sustainable projects and for the possible emission of carbon credits at the price of $700 USD per hectare, for a total of 735 thousand dollars. The sale will be carried out by transferring 50% of the stock from a company that owns a reserve of 2100 hectares (documents are available on request).
For more information and contacts: info@offshoreworld.org