U.N. Program Aims to Slow Deforestation in Developing Countries

A new United Nations program could help create a market in which rich nations pay poor ones to stop slashing and burning forests, a key step toward slowing global warming. The Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Program (UN-REDD), launched on Wednesday, will help nine developing countries set up systems to monitor forest cover. Economic pressure pushes countries to clear their forests for agriculture and timber. But “forests are worth more alive than dead,” the executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme said. Because trees capture carbon while growing and release it when they burn or decompose, deforestation accounts for almost 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, the U.N. estimates. Norway kicked off UN-REDD by donating $35 million to offset carbon emissions from its natural gas industry, and developing countries want to include the program in the successor to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which expires in 2012.