I was reading the description of the GreenMod and I had this funny idea. It seems a bit out of place in Civ, but since mods have been made for all sorts of things, I thought I would mention it.

I was thinking about allowing - after reasearching ecology - the player to built wildlife reserves. These would have a detrimental effect on the production and food from a square, but could increase commerce by one, and have a significant improvement to the health of a city, and possibly an improvment to happyness in Enviromentalism civic. On top of that, you could add a series of "Endangered Species" resoruces, whitch would significantly increase the commerce from a square with a wildlife preserve that can be discovered in one over time.

I would do this myself, but I have little understanding of how Civ IV modding works for resources and workers.

I thought that this was more or less what the elephant camps were.

A little, but only rescently has the idea of National and State Parks, and protecting endangered species become popular. In the case of the elephant camps, they seem like they are much more about the elephants themselves as used for beasts of burden than to protecd the species from extinction. I am thinking of something that could be added as something you would gain from the research from ecology or enviromentalism when people began to care about the wildlife around them.

You gain happiness in the Environmentalism civic from having forests and jungles around i believe. Thus the forests and jungle represent sort of a "nature preserve" rather than "stuff not chopped yet". Of course you could always mod in extra stuff.

That is why I was thinking a little out of place.