There’s a letter in this week’s Nature that describes the ongoing funding situation in Yasuni NP in Ecuador. Yasuni is incredibly biodiverse, one of the most intact portions of the Amazon. It’s also loaded with oil. Last summer, the Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa let the international community know he would be willing to deny the oil lease applications if global funders could pony up some cash to make up for the lost revenue.

If this is how Ecuador wants to go about business, I guess that’s fine. Hopefully more countries will cough up enough money before it’s too late and the forest will be, once again, protected. I am no stranger to the fact that developing countries are being forced by the world at large to limit their development through extractive resources in the name of conservation. It’s a totally legitimate moral dilemma. It’s also nice of Correa to be offering a discount — 50% of projected revenues — but it’s still $350 million for 10 years. Were I in charge of some global bank or monetary fund or what have you, I’d gladly give him the money. That doesn’t make what he’s doing right. It’s blackmail. Correa’s behaving no differently from the guerilla gorilla hunters in Virunga.

Protecting places like Yasuni is a goal that we, as a world should — and do! — have. We need to work out a way to make it economically feasible for struggling countries to protect their natural diversity. But threatening to destroy something in order to achieve your own economic goals is not a legitimate approach. What happens when the Pope decides he could get a little more cash by putting in a football stadium where the Sistine Chapel sits?