Communities to get paid through REDD

The government said Tuesday that local communities and project developers in the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) scheme would benefit more than the government.

The Forestry Ministry's Nur Masripatin said profit sharing through REDD would play a vital role in ensuring the sustainability of the projects and keeping carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in check.

"We're still working on the issue," she said in Jakarta.

She added the government's share of the revenue would be used to offset any CO2 emissions from REDD projects.

The Forestry Ministry, Finance Ministry and Office of the State Minister for National Development Planning/National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) are currently drafting a regulation on revenue sharing from REDD projects.

"We hope to finish it before the Copenhagen conference on climate change," Masripatin said.

Delegates from all over the world will gather in the Danish capital in December to decide whether REDD should be included in a new climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Once agreed upon, forest nations, including Indonesia, could raise billions of dollars by trading the carbon sinks in their forests to developed nations to help them meet emissions reduction targets.

Estimates vary, but annual revenue from REDD credits could reach between US$5 billion and $20 billion, the UN says.

Debate still rages over whether a REDD scheme, once all the measuring, monitoring and verification systems have been agreed upon, should be funded entirely by the market, only by public funds, or a mixture of both.

Indonesia was the first country to issue a regulation on REDD, allowing indigenous peoples, local authorities, private organizations and businesspeople, both local and foreign, to run REDD projects.

Under the regulation, permits for REDD projects may only be granted to people or groups that have ownership certificates of the forests.

National Climate Change Council secretary-general Agus Purnomo said Indonesia produced about 1.02 billion tons of CO2 emissions from peatland and forests.

He added REDD was not the same as funding to preserve forests.

"It's a climate change fund," he stressed.

"We'll only get lots of money from REDD projects if we do lots to prevent CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere from forests."

Several private firms have currently developed REDD pilot projects.

A senior climate scientist at the Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Daniel Murdiyarso, said pilot projects were important to develop assessable methodology and regulatory measures once the Copenhagen meeting had agreed on the REDD scheme.

He said CIFOR would research dozens of REDD pilot projects in Indonesia, Bolivia, Cameroon, Tanzania and Brazil to see their national policies on the projects.

CIFOR also launched a new website Tuesday focusing on REDD issues.

The website, www.redd-indonesia.org, is jointly run by CIFOR, WWF Indonesia and the Indonesian Environmental Information Center (PILI).

PILI executive director Pam E. Minnigh said the website was aimed at encouraging Indonesian stakeholders to share information and create a REDD learning community.

WWF program director for climate and energy, Fitrian Ardiansyah, said the country still needed to resolve some problems before implementing REDD, including land tenure and revenue sharing.

"We need to ensure REDD does not cause conflicts, including among local communities," he said.