BARCELONA (AlertNet) - Cutting down forests around the world accounts for close to 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. So getting right a U.N. effort to pay forest nations to keep their trees intact is important to limiting climate change.

But the road to a functioning REDD - the United Nations' programme of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries - is a perilous one, experts said at climate change talks in Barcelona.

Organised crime is already eyeing the billions of dollars that may trade hands under the scheme, said Rosalind Reeve, an environmental law specialist with London's Chatham House think tank and forest campaign manager for Global Witness, an organisation that investigates natural resource-based corruption and conflict.

"Organised crime follows the money, and we're talking about a lot of money with REDD," she said.

In addition, many forest nations rank among the world's most corrupt and least accountable countries, studies show, raising fears that money to protect forests may end up in the pockets of politicians instead.

And simply getting projects negotiated, let alone working, could take half a decade if other similar efforts are an indication, experts said.

The scheme is too big to monitor and could potentially be plagued with crime, Reeve quoted Peter Younger, an Interpol desk officer, as saying in an unpublished report she had seen.

Under REDD, designed to be part of a new global climate treaty, developed nations that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases will be able to buy additional allowances to emit CO2 by paying forest nations to limit deforestation. The aim is to protect forests, which absorb and hold large amounts of carbon dioxide, while at the same time helping countries that struggle to reduce their emissions.

Such trade would for the first time give rainforest nations like Brazil and Indonesia a financial incentive to protect their forests. And the emission allowances or credits, backers say, might eventually be sold to businesses as part of a global carbon market.

CHALLENGES

But REDD faces a variety of challenges. For one, negotiators are still struggling to reach agreement on a new climate treaty and may not be able to sign one at Copenhagen in December, as planned.

Another problem is that several of the countries that have done the most work toward creating REDD agreements or that have the largest forest holdings have received the lowest possible ratings for their anti-corruption efforts and their rule of law, effective law enforcement, judicial independence and respect for property rights, Reeve said.

Of the 37 countries currently signed up for the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility - which helps forest countries work towards adopting REDD programmes - 80 percent ranked in the bottom half on control of corruption and accountability, Reeve said.

"We have issues with governance here," she said.

A similar effort by the European Forest Institute to set up a Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade initiative, designed to give forest countries greater access to European markets for sustainably produced tropical wood forests, has run into plenty of pitfalls, said Jade Saunders, who works for the forest institute.

One key problem is that "national interest is not the primary driver of government decision-making in many forest countries" where corruption is rife and millions of dollars can be made on illegal wood trade, she said.

So what can be done to avoid the perils awaiting REDD, particularly in nations where corruption, weak institutions, unclear laws and poor forest law enforcement present a real threat?

A first step is to engage with law enforcement agencies from Interpol on down, building linkages and cross-border enforcement, Reeve said. Another is to apply lessons learned from CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which controls trade in ivory and other products from endangered animals in part by working with international law enforcement authorities.

Finally, non-governmental monitoring groups will have to learn to work together more effectively with law enforcement agencies, and effective and verifiable monitoring will need to be put in place, she said.

Other important measures, Saunders said, include trying not to push through programmes too quickly before the groundwork is in place, ensuring that often endless meetings produce results and remembering that carbon credits - an intangible product - will probably be harder to monitor than traditional forest products like wood.

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