Save the Tiger, Power the Village

Sorry for my lame Heroes allusion. At any rate, found this article in New Scientist interesting. The article is actually a small blurb on a manuscript (Arxiv) submitted for review entitled The Tiger and the Sun: Solar Power Plants and Wildlife Sanctuaries by Michael McGuigan of Brookhaven National Laboratory. I've never had a title that cool. His manuscript concludes with the following:

One difficulty with wildlife conservation is that it that it is often tied to human problems. This is because most of the wildlife is located near poor rural populations as those areas have less habitat destruction. One has to make a choice as resources are limited. Ultimately one has to help the human population.

An advantage of the integrated approach is that it ties wildlife conservation to a human solution, one which must be urgently implemented. The solar energy infrastructure must surely be secured due to its strategic importance. This security extended to the integrated wildlife sanctuary within, solves on the main costs how to maintain security over a 30,000 square mile reserve. Thus in this approach one helps the wildlife as well as the human population.

Seems like a simple enough approach, though financially I'm not sure how possible it's going to be in the short term ... or even the long term.