If you want to help apply the brakes to global warming, save some trees – especially if they are in the tropics. That’s the simple idea behind one approach to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. And it’s gained enough traction to become one of the few success stories so far at UN-sponsored global warming summit here in Copenhagen. Talks over REDD’s inclusion in any new climate agreement “are moving very well,” said Markku Kanninen, senior scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor, Indonesia. “It’s one of the few issues that have no big difficulties,” he told reporters.

Payments for conservation and sustainable management of forests could turn agents of forest destruction into forest protectors, according to a comprehensive analysis of national policy options to reduce deforestation released in Copenhagen by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). “Payments for environmental services (PES) schemes have many advantages—the incentives for forest users are strong. Those responsible for cutting emissions are compensated directly. But there are many opportunities to make rapid progress with the REDD+ agenda that don’t depend on the long-term reforms required for PES programmes,” Arild Angelsen, a CIFOR scientist who was the main editor of Realising REDD+, said in a statement. “Most of what will be undertaken at the national and local levels has in fact been attempted before. We can learn a lot by looking at what has worked and, equally important, what has not.”

Indonesia has for the last three years been leading the push for the passage of a plan called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, known as REDD, by the United Nations Climate Change Council. Implementation is fraught with complications, the idea is simple: Reward developing countries with carbon credits, potentially worth billions of dollars, for sustaining their forests. “REDD is very important to Indonesia’s long-term environment plan,” said Frances Seymour, director general of the Center for International Forestry Research. “The president’s recently announced commitment to cut carbon emissions cannot be reached without reductions in emissions from deforestation and degradation.”

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The 400-page report, which includes contributions from 59 researchers and policy experts from institutions in 19 countries is the most comprehensive analysis to date and follows the success of last year’s Moving Ahead with REDD, which has been translated into five languages. “Realising REDD+ goes one step further and considers what national policy changes are needed to implement a global mechanism to pay countries for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD),” says Frances Seymour, CIFOR’s director general.

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In a potentially valuable boost to fighting climate change, rich and poor countries are close to an agreement to end the destruction of the world’s forests in 20 years, government negotiators said. It depends, however, on whether consensus on an overarching climate accord is reached by the 192 countries at the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen starting Monday. But governments and environmentalists hope the forest plan will embolden delegates to overcome their differences and set ambitious targets for curbing the carbon emissions blamed for global warming. Supporters of the carbon market system say it would create a pay-for-performance system. “The money doesn’t flow unless you have demonstrated reductions in forest-based emissions below some agreed reference,” said Frances Seymour, director of the Center for International Forestry Research, an Indonesia-based research institute.

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Indonesia’s rich biodiversity can be best protected by improving people’s welfare, especially the poor, since many studies have shown that the leading cause of deforestation in developing countries is poverty. Globally, most deforestation is carried out by poor communities, not plantation companies, founded that only 7 percent of forest clearing is done for plantations. Oxley quoted a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), showing that globally between 70 and 80 percent of land clearing is done by poor people. “Deforestation only contributes about 17 percent of global carbon emissions. A larger portion of the emissions are the result of burning fossil fuels,” Oxley said.

In the midst of contentious negotiations in Copenhagen, more than 1,500 leading forestry experts, activists, policymakers, and global leaders will gather for the third annual Forest Day (FD3). Participants will explore and debate the implications of new scientific findings on the evolving relationship between forests and climate adaptation and mitigation. Attendees will debate whether REDD mechanisms will work in practice, whether adaptation has a role to play in sustaining forests and the people who depend on them, and what is the potential for restoring deforested and degraded forest lands. “The diversity of speakers represents the need for broad-based participation in REDD schemes,” said Frances Seymour, Director General of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). “Forestry ministries cannot carry out REDD alone. Ministries covering areas such as agriculture, rural development, planning and finance must be involved. Local governments and communities will also have important roles to play.”

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As the issue of deforestation gets set to take center-stage at a global climate change conference in Copenhagen next month, the rapid decline of Indonesia’s rainforests has come into the spotlight following heated protests by Greenpeace at the site of a carbon-rich rainforest in Sumatra that is slated for logging. Indonesia’s government has pledged to slow down deforestation, but the process of granting concessions is far from transparent in a country where bribe-taking by officials are common and local governments actively seeking investment by logging firms, as well as palm oil plantations on cleared forests.”There’s a long legacy of concerns about the integrity of decision-making in the zoning process and the concession-granting process,” said Frances Seymour, director general of the Indonesia-based Center for International Forestry Research.

The story also appeared in Reuters.