While preparing for my half-way examination I have been reading up about Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs), particularly in Africa. It's a little disappointing that many of these projects involve planting plantations of exotic eucalypts on large tracts of natural grassland (Jindal et al. 2009). That's just one more reason for me to think that putting a price on carbon isn't such a good idea; it just seems like one evil replacing the other. Having grown up in an area which had largely been transformed from grasslands to monospecific plantations, which harboured very few of the indigenous species and caused many of the streams in the region to almost dry out, I cannot see how these can be considered instruments to 'save the environment'.