Environmental Economics: Saving The Rainforests With Iguana Farms

The rainforests are being cut down faster and faster and since they are like the lungs of the earth, filtering air for all to breathe (though some scientists are debating this), besides the potential medical breakthroughs that the undiscovered plants and animals could bring, it is now more important that ever to find an alternative to cutting down trees to make ranches for raising cows for food, especially since the soil isn't fertile enough for crops or long-term non-forest use anyways. This image reflects the current business model being used for the rainforests:

Note: The "Capitalism" being talked about here is robber-baron type capitalism.
(i.e. robber baron capitalists take what they want and 'everyone else be damned').

Iguana Farms: Iguana tastes like chicken, are easy to farm - even with chickens and turkeys on the farm as they are plant eaters! - and they will prove to be more profitable than cows (less costs) and iguanas are easier to raise in the rainforests ... thus eliminating the need to clear land for cow ranching. Here is a video to get an idea of what an iguana farm is like: 

Iguana Farm from Jerry Petersen on Vimeo.

More:

Video 2 on Iguana farming

Video 3 on Iguana farming

Video 4 on Iguana farming

On Deforestation (extract)

In the past hundred years, humans have begun destroying rainforests at an alarming rate. Today, roughly 1.5 acres of rainforest are destroyed every second. People are cutting down the rainforests in pursuit of three major resources:

• Land for crops
• Lumber for paper and other wood products
• Land for livestock pastures

In the current economy, people obviously have a need for all of these resources. But almost all experts agree that, over time, we will suffer much more from the destruction of the rainforests than we will benefit. The world's rainforest are an extremely valuable natural resource, to be sure, but not for their lumber or their land. They are the main cradle of life on Earth, and they hold millions of unique life forms that we have yet to discover. Destroying the rainforests is comparable to destroying an unknown planet -- we have no idea what we're losing. If deforestation continues at its current rate, the world's tropical rainforests will be wiped out within 40 years.

Note: The worlds paper problem can be solved by growing non-thc based hemp which grows fast, in soil with low fertility and produces high quality paper (better than the paper from trees!). Since the hemp I am talking about can't get anyone high likes it's cousin the Marijuana plant, there is no need to consult doctors or psychiatrists to make hemp legal for growing.