After looking at other peoples' ideas on this stuff all over the place, I realize that we really are somewhat blind as to our solutions.
- Buy the area: That is the most primitive idea. People with a lot of money and who want some lasting reputation will often buy the whole place.
Or they could simply be a business running some recreational activities.
- Own the area: Equivalent to the first, but governments can be doing this. More permanent.
- Brand the area a "national park", "UNESCO world heritage site", "geo-park"...:
This supposedly grants the whole place legal protection from some government agency, or Non-Governmental Organization like the WWF.
- Don't do anything at all. Make the area public and free for all: This is often the case in the US, where tracts of land are large enough for no one to care about. It is protected solely by virtue and the way of life, the tradition and right to own and use firearms for hunting.
Ultimately, I do not believe that getting the UN into the business of conserving parts of other countries is more unaccountable power, which by the UN's own definitions of "socio-political sustainability", are not sustainable. Any nation does not have to be limited by what it can do to its own land because the UN lays land rights on the area.
Of course, UN listings do seem to be some matter of pride to anyone running the attraction, but there are many interesting places on Earth that do not need people to run, but are also not considered special.
So the message here is simply that nature does not need to be run by human beings, if we see our relationship with it and simply learn to enjoy and share it as public land. It will not work if people do not share nature and instead try to own everything as private territory. People will not learn what nature means if nature becomes property.
And what would this look like in the Amazon Rainforest? If the average Brazilian went to the rainforest more for leisurely purposes, combined with swarms of "eco-tourists", they would quickly balance out the influence and rather one-sided interests of the "illegal farmers and loggers".
If there were more people who run around wild places just for fun, then people will quickly realize what a contrast and relief it is to human society, by which I mean that at least in nature, there aren't dollar signs everywhere.
It is my belief that in a prosperous place, people realize that they need somewhere to get away from the stress of a purely human environment. If they don't get away, people can become stressed, simply because things get a little too dull and regular.
This ownership of nature will quickly become an issue, as some people on Earth will buy up land in more pristine areas for themselves(thanks to the cooperation of less powerful countries which seek to raise money), while others without the capital to do so will live in more concentrated areas.
Hence it is best to have some sort of small representation and authority, probably as a national park, with somewhat free rules, just no acts of ownership. That sort of authority could probably help put out some fires, rescue people and do some research. So free land not as in free for all to grab, but free for all to enjoy. True, no one system can be completely protected from hooligans and arsonists. But we can have a better, freer one.