Why Carbon Markets Make Forest Conservation Lucrative How are orangutans and carbon markets linked?
Consider these two facts: 1) Annual forest loss in Indonesia amounts to some 1.8 million hectares — helping to make Indonesia one of the biggest CO2 emitters in the world. 2) And forest loss in Indonesia over the last three decades has directly or indirectly killed some 3,000 orangutans every year. Much of the forest conversion has happened under the guise of economic development. This development has ignored the muiltifaceted benefits of forests: how they provided many local communities with livelihoods as well as clean water, local climate regulation, and flood and erosion prevention. However, those benefits did not clearly translate into financial gains for the state, local governments and business involved in Indonesian forest conversion. But the lack of financial incentive to protect forests might now change — because it will now be possible to make protection and sustainable management of forests pay for itself through carbon markets: • A carbon price of $16 per ton of CO2 would
