Cifor’s Ms Seymour, however, felt that Asean would do the right thing. Redd would take some years to kick off,’ she said. ‘It is in Asean’s interests not to wait and to solve the haze issue quickly, as every haze-affected day amounts to some economic losses.’

The bottom line: Developing countries could pocket from $2.3 billion to $23 billion a year from avoiding deforestation under REDD, according to Frances Seymour, director general of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Jakarta, Indonesia. The range reflects different assumptions about the price of carbon on international markets and on the expanse of forest involved. And as talks on crafting a framework for negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol wind down here, REDD looks as though it will be incorporated into that framework, analysts here say.

Deforestation is responsible for 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon emissions every year, amounting to one-fifth of the global total, and to more than the combined total contributed by the world’s energy-intensive transport sectors, according to the Indonesia-based Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
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Environmentalists said the plan to protect forests was a good start, but some had reservations about its implementation. Frances Seymour, director for the Center for International Forestry Research, a nonprofit U.S. group, voiced concern that the system was vulnerable to corruption and could be undermined by a growing demand for biofuels. Global demand for palm oil, a popular biofuel, has increased sharply in recent years and has led to the widespread clearing of tropical forests to make way for palm plantations.

"C’est une excellente nouvelle pour la deuxième période d’engagement du protocole de Kyoto en 2012. Mais la protection de la forêt est aussi indispensable à la biodiversité, à la vie des populations qui en dépendent et à leur intégrité culturelle" souligne Frances Seymour, directrice du Centre international pour la recherche forestière, basée en Indonésie. "Les forêts ont obtenu ici des incitations financières et l’attention politique. Le problème dans ce scénario est de veiller au respect des droits des communautés indigènes: qui va les rémunérer si elles veulent protéger leur forêt mais que leurs droits de propriété ne sont pas reconnus", demande-t-elle.
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"If you agree with Al Gore that we have a climate emergency, you can’t afford to have 20 percent of the problem off the table. We have to do it," said Frances J. Seymour, the director general of the Center for International Forest Research in Indonesia, referring to the Nobel prize-winning former U.S. vice president. "There are so many other reasons to conserve forest from sustainable development forest."
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Christiane Ehringhaus, who studies the Amazon for the Center for International Forestry Research, says she would not be surprised if the Amazon’s future is bleaker than previously expected. She says the cycle of drying may have contributed to, and been intensified by, widespread forest fires in 2005. "You saw fires in areas of the Amazon that hadn’t been detected even as flammable in previous models. So you saw forest fires that are undetectable from space that do tremendous damage and dry up the forest for subsequent fires," said Ehringhaus.

La directora del Centro, Frances Seymour, subrayó el potencial de las discusiones en Bali para luchar contra la deforestación mediante la compensación de los administradores de tierras por su protección de la capacidad de almacenar dióxido de carbono de los bosques mediante un mercado global multimillonario de "créditos de carbono". "Estos pagos a los individuales tienen el potencial de cambiar los incentivos financieros que favorecen la destrucción de los bosques (como pasa ahora) por esos que impulsan la conservación", apuntó.