Environmental Implications of Development Aid

Abstract

We in the developed western nations need to conserve the world’s biological resources for our own sake, and yet these resources are mostly in the Third World. As one of the few tools we have is development aid, I argue that a large proportion of development aid should go to projects whose principal aim is environmental protection in developing countries. Our aid budgets are for billion of dollars, or their equivalent, every year; contributed directly by taxpayers. So we should have some say in how aid funds are spent.