THE Tory party donor and environmental philanthropist Johan Eliasch has been accused of “green colonialism” after allegedly consigning 1,000 people to poverty in his attempts to preserve the Amazon jungle.

The allegations against Eliasch, who last week was touring South America with his friend the Duke of York, come from the inhabitants of a region of the Brazilian rainforest the size of Greater London.

In 2005 the Swedish-born tycoon, who runs the Head sports goods empire, spent a reported £13.7m of his estimated £361m fortune buying 400,000 acres — about 625 square miles — of jungle from an American-owned timber company with the aim of protecting it from loggers. Eliasch has described the move as “my little bit towards saving the world”.

As a result of the deal, a lumber mill that employed as many as 1,000 people closed in the town of Itacoatiara in northwest Brazil, increasing hardship in an already economically depressed region.

The closure has pitched Eliasch into a debate about how rich countries can help preserve tropical rainforests while considering the livelihoods of people who live and work in them. Some local environmentalists have accused him of dabbling in “green colonialism”. “What he is doing is valid in terms of preservation but you cannot let people go hungry,” said Lelio Moreira, who works at the local radio station, Panorama Itacoatiara.

“There has to be some kind of help for locals hurt by this. Now, with the lack of jobs, violence is increasing and because fathers cannot afford to look after their families we also have a growing problem with child prostitution.”

Joao Manuel Figueira, a municipal employee, added: “The impact of the plant’s closure has been harsh. The local shops are feeling the knock-on effects with a drop in sales. We know the environment is important and deforestation is a problem. But knocking all the forest down is one thing. Taking out mature wood is another.”

Moreira said most residents had no idea who Eliasch was or what his plans were for his purchase. But Eliasch said relations with local government and the wider population since he bought into the region had been “generally positive”.

He said all the workers he laid off were fully compensated and he planned to re-hire many of them as guards to protect his new wilderness sanctuary.

But he admitted that for him, preserving the jungle was “the only option” and took priority over those living there.

“The rainforest is more important to me at the moment,” said Eliasch, who is the Tories’ deputy treasurer. He has also lent the party £2.6m.

He rejected arguments that first world countries, which chopped down their own forests in the drive for industrialisation, had no right to try to prevent Brazilians doing the same. “I’d like to say a move like my purchase is more learning from our mistakes,” he said. “People have made mistakes in the western world and [I am] trying to prevent it happening elsewhere.”

Eliasch is not the only one caught up in the paradox that by trying to save the rainforest he is harming the people who earn their living there. The Brazilian government says it is living up to its commitments to preserve the forest and points to a steep drop in the rate of deforestation since a peak in 2002. But that effort has hit the economy of many jungle towns hard.

Last year Eliasch came up with the idea of buying the whole rainforest to preserve it. The result was a diplomatic incident between Brazil and Britain when the idea was taken up by David Miliband, the environment secretary, who suggested setting up an international trust as the best way to preserve the Amazon.

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