Compensating farmers for preserving landscapes that are rich in carbon will, in addition to mitigating climate change and deforestation, have a significant impact on reducing poverty. These are the findings of a study by CGIAR scientists, which was released at the Bali climate change conference in December 2007, attracting considerable interest and media coverage.

According to the study, farmers' planting of annual crops at the expense of forests usually generates less than US$5 for each ton of carbon dioxide equivalent released - an amount that is unlikely to lift them out of poverty. At the same time, the European market for carbon credits is currently paying €21 per ton, or about six times more. Yet, in the absence of a suitable mechanism for receiving payment for carbon credits, planting annual crops currently makes more economic sense for farmers.

Brent Swallow, leader of the study and global coordinator of the Alternative to Slash and Burn (ASB) Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins, said that prevailing policy environments and short-term economics favor cutting trees.

"But if farmers were rewarded for carbon stored in trees and forests, vast areas of forest could be saved and carbon emissions greatly reduced," he added.

The study, which covered sites across Indonesia and the Amazon and Congo basins, draws on a decade of research by the ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins on the tradeoffs between local development and the environmental consequences of tropical deforestation. Swallow explained that one of the key objectives of ASB is to provide the science and policy formulas needed to inform debate about deforestation and help decision makers to determine how it can be addressed.

"This study demonstrates a method for calculating the opportunity costs of avoiding deforestation," Swallow said. "And the findings provide a starting point for informed national and international negotiations."

The ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins is a consortium of five CGIAR Centers and the national research organizations of six countries with tropical forests. It supports country-level negotiators in building the case for preserving tropical forests and works toward finding a balance between people and the environment through such land-use systems as agroforestry.

Fahmuddin Agus of the Indonesian Soil Research Institute, an ASB partner, emphasized the need for policymakers and land users to pay special attention to emissions and the economic tradeoffs from deforestation, especially in relation to the peat forests of Indonesia.

"When peat lands are converted to other land uses, large stores of carbon are emitted in the form of carbon dioxide," he said. "The ASB analysis shows that most of these conversions provide very small returns to the farmers. This needs to be considered by policymakers and land users."

The findings of the ASB study have attracted a great deal of attention from key players in the global debate on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries (REDD). The Woods Hole Research Center has agreed to collaborate with ASB in the Congo Basin, and the Prince of Wales Rainforest Project is using ASB results to promote rainforest protection.

In addition to the release of the study, the ASB Partnership produced a series of policy briefs and a short film on the Indonesian perspective that was screened at the Bali conference.

The ASB Partnership is now launching a monthly e-newsletter to provide updates on its work and news about publications and events relating to REDD. The distribution list of 1,200 so far includes policymakers, senior scientists, students and journalists.

Swallow said the ASB Partnership will continue to build on the results of the study by sharing methods, finalizing results at other sites, and clarifying policy options for negotiators working on REDD policies.

The full report and related publications are available at www.asb.cgiar.org. To subscribe to the ASB e-newsletter, send an email to asb@cgiar.org.