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Mexicans protest against REDD. (Credit: Luka Tomac / Friends of the Earth International)

Forests contain roughly 90 percent of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and deforestation is one of many crucial issues which ministers and experts are discussing at their 6-17 October UN Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Korea.

Now let’s say it was up to you to reverse deforestation and help fight climate change. Would you use tried and tested methods? Or would you bet on a complex trick that may not work?

Unfortunately, governments around the world are taking the second option, betting on a risky method called REDD, or ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation‘.

So far, the trick hasn’t been working. Deforestation is a massive environmental as well as social problem, and climate changing emissions from deforestation are high and rising. REDD is based on the idea that people will not cut down trees if they can make money from them while they are still standing.

Though this superficially attractive concept is riddled with problems, it is our governments’ favored approach, even at the United Nations.

Deforestation contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main cause of climate change, and for this reason climate change negotiators have been taking a keen interest in the fate of the world’s forests for many years now.

What’s the good news? We know how to successfully conserve forests: we simply have to empower communities to manage forests on the basis of their traditional knowledge (pdf). The main thing that seems to be missing is the political will to do so on a large scale. So far, our governments have found it easier to try and make it profitable to keep forests standing by creating ‘forest carbon’ projects.