Reply to comment

Permit me to answer some questions raised in the above comments.
1) Most of the "eco" in so called green developments is BS, often based on marketing opportunism and sometimes as mentioned above on lack of knowledge.
2.) Leaving land alone does not always regenerate land, or certainly not as quickly as if you have some resources to apply to the process. Gully erosion, for instance, proceeds apace in reforested land without specific control measures.
3) Absolute sustainability can be argued about until doomsday, we need concrete examples of "much better" right now. Tradeoffs will have to be made.
4) The accepted litmus test for "green" is attention paid to the hydrological cycle. I'm in the wet-dry tropics where it is critical. A green project should capture and infiltrate as much or more rainfall than the land originally did. Certain projects mentioned above are doing next to nothing to control erosion, along roads, around pads, etc. When you see mud and muddy streams running off site, you know where they have drawn the bottom line. Less water infiltrated means less growth, less CO2 fixation, less food and habitat, and plenty of damage downstream.
5) No project should be considered sustainable if it is isolated from the surrounding communities, if they only exist as a labor pool. The ideal mix is a measure of integration and economic interchange based around sustainable food production.