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tion initiatives as well. A similar deal will allow Botswana to repurpose $8.3 million in debt payments owed to the U.S. for conservation and restoration of its tropical forests in the Okavango Delta and Chobe National Park regions.
lb date, the U.S. has arranged a dozen debt-for-nature swaps (one under President Clinton and the rest under George W. Bush), forgiving $135 million worth of loans for conservation s sake from not only Guatemala and Botswana, but also Bangladesh, Belize, Colombia, El Salvador, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, the Philippines and Peru. Under the terms of the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, enacted in 1998, developing countries with a tropical forest of global or regional significance, a democratically elected government and plans for economic reform are eligible for debt forgiveness from the U.S. as long as they are willing to undertake conservation efforts accordingly. They also must cooperate with the U.S. on international narcotics control measures while neither supporting terrorism nor violating human rights.
While the U.S. has been the leader in encouraging debt-fornature swaps, other developed countries are starting to get in on the act as well. Germany has forgiven tens of millions of Euros owed it by the governments of Indonesia and Bolivia, among others, for the benefit of the environment. And last June, France joined the fray by forgiving $25 million in debt from Cameroon in the name of protecting still pristine stretches of the Congo River Basin, the world’s second largest tropical
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