Iraq and Afghanistan

In yesterday's paper, William Powers writes that the failure of the Liberian state offers an opportunity for the international community to mount a long-term assistance program for Liberia at the same time that it permanently preserves the country's unique biological heritage. Most of the world has not realized it, but because of the lack of development, and in spite of the continual fighting among a collection of armed groups, governmental or otherwise, Liberia has managed to preserve a valuable stretch of West African rain forest.

Under his "Peace for Nature" solution (based on the more modest "debt for nature" approach that has been used in several countries), Liberia would agree to convert a large part of the country into a United Nations biosphere reserve, zoned for both strict preservation and multiple use. This would mean a commitment of the international community to at least a 20-year stabilization program that would preserve the peace and educate the people in peace-loving ways. The idea is attractive, but seems naive as presented. If only it was this easy to bring peace to an area.

Yet, perhaps the idea can be built on. The world is facing a crisis of "failed states" that includes Haiti, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly "Congo", then Zaire). There are a number of other possible candidates for this appellation, particularly in Africa. Taking an "environmental imperatives" approach to "failed states" or states with apparently intractable economic or political problems offers opportunities for long-term coordinated international assistance that might otherwise be lacking. The problems that would be addressed by the international guarantors are of two quite different kinds. First, in states such as Liberia and Congo, the program would be based on establishing large, internationally protected conservation areas, with high-return development activities concentrated in relatively small areas (what in the suburbs we refer to as "clustering" or "conservation zoning"). Second, the whole of states such as Haiti and Nauru would be defined as "environmental reclamation areas". Here the international community as well as many international private agencies would undertake to rebuild the country environmentally, socially, and politically.