Actually, it wouldn't be as outrageously expensive as I thought -- some sites say an acre of rainforest can be bought and protected for $10/acre. [1]
The entire Amazon rainforest is 2 million square miles or around 1.2B acres. So you could buy the whole thing for around $12B. Or about half the price of building a wall between the USA and Mexico [2] that many people see as unneeded and unwanted.
When I talked to some Brazilians about the American enthusiasm for buying the rainforest in order to protect it from deforestation, they were pretty concerned about how well the property rights in the purchased land could be protected. They pointed out that there is a whole lot of poaching going on in the Amazon and even in Brazilian parks.
The Rainforest Trust that you mentioned sounds like they're donating the land to national parks, which seems like a great solution because there will be forest rangers and so on, yet my Brazilian friends were concerned about how effectively they can deter poaching, especially in remote areas.
I don't have a clear sense of this but I wonder if it might provide a greater marginal benefit at present to pay for more protection of existing "protected" areas, compared to purchasing additional land.
Thanks for sharing this. I'm looking into Rainforest Trust now and they see to be one of the most credible and highly rated charity organizations (it's always so hard to make sure your donations aren't just bring taken advantage of).
The entire Amazon rainforest is 2 million square miles or around 1.2B acres. So you could buy the whole thing for around $12B. Or about half the price of building a wall between the USA and Mexico [2] that many people see as unneeded and unwanted.
[1] https://www.rainforesttrust.org/10-for-1/
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-wal...