At the Los Angeles auto show in November 2008, Hyundai made a groundbreaking announcement. It would offset carbon dioxide emitted by all 2009 Genesis sedans during their first year on the road through “the permanent conservation and reforestation of 3,000 acres of tropical forest in Brazil.”

Margie Peixoto was driving her pickup across her farm in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul one February afternoon when she spotted some broken corn stalks and a trio of white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) ambling along the red-clay road as if they owned it. The moment these wild pig relatives spotted the truck, they snorted, snarled and disappeared into the head-high crop, where dozens more likely hid.