However, Frances Seymour, director-general of the Centre for International Forestry Research, warned: "For these payment schemes to be effective, there need to be significant governance reforms going all the way from establishing clear property rights to new institutional mechanisms for channelling payments so they are not siphoned off but make their way to the pockets of the right people."

On Saturday, meetings on forest conservation took center stage at the first Forest Day ever held at a UN climate meeting. The parallel event was hosted by the Center for International Forestry Research, CIFOR. The Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, Yvo de Boer, was presented with a set of key recommendations on the role of forests in combating climate change for consideration by the government ministers participating in the high-level segment of the conference which begins Wednesday. De Boer welcomed the contribution that the many world-leading experts and forest organizations attending Forest Day could make in influencing forest and climate policy at the global level

Daniel Murdiyarso es un climatólogo indonesio del Centro Internacional para la Investigación Forestal (CIFOR). Está especializado en adaptación de los bosques tropicales al cambio climático. "La deforestación es la segunda causa de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero. Cada año, la pérdida de bosques supone la emisión a la atmósfera de 6.000 millones de toneladas de CO2. Sólo conseguir reducir a la mitad esa cantidad sería ya un gran éxito y tendría un gran impacto", explica en Bali a este diario. Para eso hacen falta entre 5.000 y 10.000 millones de dólares al año, añade.

In Indonesien, Gastgeberland der Klimakonferenz, werden jährlich 1,9 Millionen Hektar Regenwald abgeholzt. »Das ist weltweit eine der Hauptquellen für Kohlendioxidemissionen«, heißt es in dem auf Bali veröffentlichten Bericht des Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Ursache ist die weltweit steigende Nachfrage nach Palmöl und Chinas Bedarf an Zellstoff für die Papierproduktion. In Zentralafrika sind der Bedarf an Feuerholz und die Holzkohleproduktion treibende Kraft für den Verlust von jährlich vier Millionen Hektar Wald.

The Asian Young Leaders Climate Forum (AYLCF) in Bogor ended Friday with the 35 participants from 14 countries producing an action plan and a shared, strong commitment toward building a network in the Asia-Pacific to address climate change issues. The communique is the result of a five-day workshop facilitated by the British Council, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF). The workshop, which ran from Dec. 5-8 in Bogor, was attended by representatives from China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

The article also appeared in Xinhua News, China Daily, Central News Agency of Taiwan and Taiwan Headlines with variety titles.

Brasilien, das Land mit dem größten Regenwald, hält nichts von Waldschutzzertifikaten. Die Südamerikaner hätten lieber einen Redd-Fonds, einen Topf mit Geld für den Waldschutz. Auf Bali wird gerade um den richtigen Weg gestritten. Der Finanzbedarf ist noch offen. „Die Reduktion der Entwaldung wird jährlich zwischen 2,3 und 23 Milliarden US-Dollar kosten“, schätzt Frances Seymour vom Waldforschungszentrum Cifor.

Frances Seymour, Director General for the Indonesia-based Center for International Forest Research, is concerned a premature REDD agreement could do more harm than good. "Because in many forested countries, land tenure rights to forest lands and resources are either unclear or contested or both. And you can imagine that if a potential new income stream is available for those who can present themselves as owners of the forest, this could create conflict and create conditions under which some of the world’s poorest people, who are people who live in forests, could be pushed aside," said Seymour.

Separately, the Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) said there would be ample opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emission should the financial incentives be sufficient to flip the political and economic realities that caused deforestation. “After being left out of the Kyoto agreement, it is promising that deforestation is commanding center-stage at the Bali conference,” CIFOR’s director general, Frances Seymour said in the statement. “But the danger is that policy makers will fail to appreciate that forest destruction is caused by an incredibly wide variety of political and economic factors that originate outside the forestry sector and require different solution.”