Who Gets Paid for Not Cutting Down Trees?

If you live on some land, and it turns out there is oil under the land, then either you get to drill the oil and sell it and keep the money, or the government does, or someone else does. There are various legal regimes. Perhaps you get to lease the oil rights to an oil company and keep some of the money. Perhaps you get nothing; perhaps the government owns all the oil in your country and can cut its own deals with the oil companies without giving you anything. All sorts of possibilities. But in any case, either you get the money from the oil, or someone else does, or you split it somehow. Or, of course, the oil is not discovered, or not exploited, and nobody gets the money.

Similarly, if you live on some land, and it has trees, and you don’t cut down the trees, then the trees store carbon that might otherwise go into the atmosphere, and therefore they reduce global warming. And in the modern economy, those trees — or, rather, the fact of not cutting down the trees — can be turned into carbon credits; some big company will pay money for those credits to offset its own emissions. But who gets to sell the carbon credits and keep the money? Again, the possibilities include (1) you, as the person living on the land, (2) the government, or (3) someone else. Perhaps you can cut a deal with a carbon-credit company to preserve the trees, generate the credits and split the money. Perhaps the government owns all the not-cutting-down-trees in your country and can cut its own deals with global markets without giving you anything. All sorts of possibilities.