From the beginning, the 914,289-acre (370,000-hectare) Iwokrama rainforest in Guyana was unusual. It’s the largest swath of undisturbed rainforest in the world and neither a private nor traditional public parkland. Since 1989, an international board of trustees has administered the forest, while the Iwokrama International Centre manages the land and makes use of its assets.

The publication of Iwokrama’s 2008 financial report just made the forest a little more interesting. According to the Economist, the forest turned a profit of $800,000 by exploiting its sustainability — assets that include ecotourism, forestry research and forest products, in addition to the more traditional timber extraction. Through this carefully managed array of services tuned to avoid deforestation, the centre has managed to put their forest in the black.

But more ambitiously, the centre is looking to make use of its ecosystem services, services “a forest provides merely by existing.” Ecosystem services might sound like a new term, but you’re probably already familiar with at least one type: forestry offsets for carbon sequestration.