31 Jul 2008

Papuan landowners want to protect forests

10:49 am on 31 July 2008

An Australian investment firm involved in a carbon finance project with Indonesia's Papua province says many local landowners would prefer to make money by protecting their forests rather than clearing them.

The firm, New Forests, recently sent a team to Papua to assess prospective sites for a Reduced Emissions from Deforestation project.

Papua's Governor has pledged to protect the province's forests in return for carbon-credit financing from global investors.

However large areas of Papua's forests are being targeted by investors for conversion into oil palm plantations.

But the Asia director of New Forests, Maree Candish, says the communities they have spoken to in Papua understand the value of what carbon financing can achieve.

"They depend on the forest. They don't want it to be cleared. These communities have quite good informal rules for managing their forest areas and they've heard about what happens when an oil palm development comes in or something similar - they know that forest gets cleared and their rivers get muddy so they can't get their fish."