Indonesia Comes Up Short in $1 Billion Bid to Save Forests

Indonesia forest moratorium is renewed, but progress in saving trees and slowing carbon emissions has been slow. The moratorium, never intended as a comprehensive solution to the problem, hasn’t rolled back deforestation since it was implemented in 2011 under a deal with Norway, which promised to pay $1 billion if Indonesia took action to protect its dwindling forests. Norway had better luck with a similar fund to help the world’s top forest economy, Brazil, reduce its deforestation rate, which fell 76% between 2004 and 2012. But Brazil was already on its way to doing so before Norway offered funding, forestry researchers say. “Norway helped them accelerate what they were already undertaking,” said Louis Verchot, director of forests and environment research at the Center for International Forestry Research, an environmental-research center with headquarters in Indonesia.