Regarding tropical rainforest preservation as an asset in economic calculations, since rainforests provide essential ecosystem services to everyone. Rainforests are rarely considered as more than short-term assets. There is a need to enact “resource depletion taxes,” contractual obligations for logging concessionaires (such as mandating reforestation, the use of careful logging techniques, etc.) and other disincentives to clear-cutting and resource depletion. The revenues from such taxes could be used for reforestation, protection of reserves and other conservation measures.
