Life Insurance for Tropical Hardwood Resources

Abstract

While it is perfectly possible to think of timber in ordinary economic terms, the same does not apply when we start to consider its source, i.e. the forests. This can be demonstrated by making a comparison with the chemical or metal industries which to a large extent use raw materials extracted from beneath the earth’s surface. Take any metal — copper, silver or iron — and then consider the consequences of a catastrophe which destroys a town containing objects made from that metal. It would subsequently be possible to recover the metals and to reconstruct the objects using appropriate technological methods. There would always be some losses of the raw material, but these would be marginal from an economic point of view. Recovery would require a great deal of energy and would therefore be very expensive, but it would be possible — a reassuring thought.