When Pedro Carlos de Oliveira Cardoso began clearing his farmland in 1948, he decided to leave a large swath of forest untouched. “Someday these trees will be missed,” he’d explain to anyone willing to listen. His behavior may have seemed peculiar a half-century ago, when farmers routinely clear-cut their land. But nowadays, the 97-year-old might fairly be called a visionary. In 1998, he registered 427 acres (173 hectares) of his land as a Private Natural Heritage Reserve (RPPN). Now home to an ecotourism operation run by his granddaughter and her husband, the reserve is among the nearly 1.2 million acres (500,000 hectares) of permanently protected private land in Brazil. Some 600 individuals, corporations and nonprofit groups have voluntarily registered private property... [Log in to read more]