An ingenious forest-protection proposal has grown out of the ongoing U.N. climate change summit [1], according to a BBC article [2]: Papua New Guinea officials suggested that developing countries should reap financial rewards in return for prohibiting their industries from razing forests – an idea that is long overdue. Preserving foliage-rich wilderness is a lynchpin of the global-warming solution: Trees create natural carbon sinks [3] that breathe in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, and release oxygen.

Currently the Kyoto Protocol [4] does not include any program that offers credits for countries that prevent deforestation – even though credits can be reaped for the replanting of stripped areas and cultivation of new forests. According to Kevin Conrad, director of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations [5], providing incentives for forest preservation is a must: “If you include deforestation from just Indonesia and Brazil alone, the carbon emissions from those two countries basically offset 80% of all carbon emissions savings which come from the Kyoto Protocol. Throw in a few more countries, and the Kyoto Protocol is not achieving much at all.”

Photo credit: BBC.co.uk [6]