However fl ying 3,000 meters above sea level over the forests of Aceh helps bring home the significance of such an initiative.

During this 45-minute priceless flight — the time it took between taking off from Sultan Iskandar Muda Airport in Banda Aceh and landing at Alas Lauser Airport, Southeast Aceh, Aceh — green tropical forests, dense and high, spread till the eyes could see.

Millions of giant trees growing at 1,200 to 2,000 meters above sea level stood below the plane, challenging a blanket of clouds moving slowly over the mountains.

“This is very spectacular, and a most amazing scenery. I have never seen such tightly packed forest in my country,” said Dan Schooff, the deputy secretary of the state of Wisconsin in the US, during a flight organized to get a bird’s eye view of Aceh’s forests.

Dan Schooff represented the US at the recent Governor‘s Climate and Forest Meeting held in Banda Aceh.

This meeting between delegates of countries with forests was held to discuss mechanisms and standards to be used for carbon trading, under the REDD program.

According to the UN website, the REDD program is “an endeavor to create an incentive for developing forested countries to protect, better manage and wisely use their forest resources, thus contributing to the global fi ght against climate change”.

The initiative “rests on the effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in standing forests.

In the long term, payments for verified emission reductions and removals, either market or fund based, provide an incentive for REDD countries to further invest in lowcarbon development and a healthier, greener tomorrow”.

In other words, REDD is a system enabling “rich” countries to offset their carbon emissions by paying “poor” countries to preserve their forests, as forests store large amounts of carbon in their trees and soil.

 Aceh, one of Indonesia’s provinces with forests, is using Ulu Masen Forest as a pilot project for carbon trading. In the business community, Ulu Masen is known as the world’s fi rst commercially fi nanced REDD project, where Bank of America Merrill Lynch purchased carbon credits from 7,690 square kilometers of protected forest.

The Ulu Masen Forest is located in the northern part of the province, covering an area equivalent to 12 times the size of Jakarta.

Approximately 2 million people in five districts are heavily dependent on clean water from the Ulu Masen Forest. The forest has 17 large and small rivers providing water to neighboring ecosystems.

Several almost extinct animal species, such as tigers, elephants, the Sumatran rhinoceros and orangutans also inhabit the forest.

At the moment, Aceh’s government is in the process of calculating Ulu Masen forest’s potential to act as a carbon sink, using standards devised by the forestry department.

“The first step is to measure the diameter of the trees. Then we will determine the canopy coverage area from the trees we measure,” said Susilo, an employee of Flora and Fauna International, one of Aceh’s oldest international environmental groups, which has been working on a project to measure the forest’s potential to absorb carbon dioxide.

“Can you imagine how much money Aceh would be able to earn if the forest remains and is well looked after?” said Susilo.

 Moreover the Ulu Masen Forest in Aceh includes an area of the Lauser Ecosystem, namely a large forest with signifi cant biodiversity located in an area of Central Aceh up to the province of North Sumatra.

According to the legends of the Gayo tribe, which lives around the forest, Lauser is the eternal resting place for animals. Leusoh means “veiled in clouds”.

In the past, the Lauser area became the center of world’s attention because of its extensive biodiversity, and a paradise for scientists conducting research into many aspects of nature. This region has more or less 1.8 million hectares of diverse ecosystems.

One of the research topics scientists attach much importance to is the study of orangutans, which only lives in the forests of Sumatra and Kalimantan.

Apart from orangutans, the Lauser Forest also houses thousands of animals, including several close to extinction, such as hornbills, Sumatran tigers, the Sumatran rhinoceros, butterflies and other species.

“At the moment, the Lauser ecosystem is also being prepared to become one of the carbon trading projects. But we still need time,” said Mike Griffiths, conservation and rehabilitation coordinator of the Agency for the Management of the Lauser ecosystem (BPKEL).

According to him, the REDD project is very useful in helping stop the rapid deforestation of forests in Aceh today. With the REDD project, the community is expected to be motivated to maintain the forests around them.

 One of the main challenges facing the REDD program is illegal logging and mining, which is being carried out extensively by individuals and certain institutions.

Many forest areas, which in the past were green and conserved, have been turned into plantations, such as oil palm plantations, or logged to make space for mining Indonesia’s treasure chest of natural resources.

If the government doesn’t put a stop to illegal logging and mining immediately, only the REDD project will stand against this interference.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recently announced his commitment to the two-year moratorium at a joint press conference with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, which was conducted ahead of the signing of the US$1 billion deal between Indonesian and Norwegian governments in Oslo. The program aims to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

If the issue of deforestation is not tackled, the forests of Aceh will continue to be felled, and will no longer act a fortress helping prevent natural disasters and the extinction of rare species.

At the moment the only forests in the world remaining relatively intact and complete are in Indonesia and Brazil.

— Photos by Hotli Simanjuntak