Indonesia's Papua to protect forests, seeks cash

By Adhityani Arga

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesia's Papua wants to preserve part of its rainforest in exchange for cash to help the world slow global warming, the governor said at U.N. climate talks.

"We have decided to set aside a large part of our conversion forests to save the planet," Governor Barnabas Suebu told Reuters during U.N. climate talks in Bali. Conversion forests are earmarked for clearance for palm oil or pulp plantations.

Deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of all man-made carbon emissions blamed for global warming -- trees soak up carbon when they grow and release it when they rot or burn.

Stopping or curbing the destruction is widely regarded as a crucial part of any new climate pact to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

Suebu said that the remote forest-rich province on the Indonesian half of Guinea island was offering to preserve 7 million hectares (17.30 million acres) -- an area almost the size of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

In return, Papua hopes to earn millions of dollars through carbon trading by getting credit for leaving the forests intact.

Delegatas at the U.N. climate talks on the resort island of Bali are aiming to launch talks to work out a new pact by 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which runs to 2012.

The United Nations hopes the two-week conference will agree to study schemes to curb emissions by slowing deforestation and bind it into an emissions trading scheme.