I’ve seen somewhere or other that a definition of a radical in politics is someone who looks at the whole picture, the entire structure, before acting to change what is wrong. So what is such a radical view of this?

After surviving the incursions of poachers, loggers and farmers, one of
the last great tracts of protected virgin rainforest in South-East Asia
is now being destroyed because of booming coffee exports, according to
conservationists.

OK, real problem. The solution currently suggested is that the coffee companies should make sure they are not buying coffee grown in the park. Difficult that, I’m sure. But what’s the root of the problem?

The coffee rush has brought settlers from crowded Java or elsewhere
in Sumatra, and about 15,000 families taken over plots of land where
they grow ginger, cinnamon, rubber and coffee.

WWF estimates that more than 40,000 hectares have been cut
down for coffee plantations inside the protected area. Government
officials and overstretched park staff have done little to stop them,
and most of the farmers make little more than a subsistence living,
although selling coffee has given many of them earnings for the first
time in their lives.

One coffee farmer, Suratno, moved from Java in 1984 with his
family and admits to growing one and a half hectares of coffee inside
the forest. He said: “I don’t feel guilty about growing in the
wilderness. There is still plenty of forest in there. But I wouldn’t
want to see it all destroyed. Then there could be floods and erosion.”

It would appear to be a combination of two things. A Commons Tragedy, in that the park is not owned by anyone sufficiently interested in protecting it, thus the homesteading, and poverty, thus the homesteading. Reforming a Third World government is probably more difficult than getting rid of the poverty. So what we would really like is for there to be some way for those peasant farmers to make more money than they do by growing coffee in the forest.

So, here’s a radical solution: let’s campaign for Nike to open a couple of sweatshops in the area. That’ll do it, don’t you think? We can then all buy their products in good heart, knowing that we’re helping to save the hairy rhino.