Friday 11 April 2008

Australian company secures carbon deal for Indonesian forests

Australian company secures carbon deal for Indonesian forests

Updated Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:43am AEST
ABC RADIO AUSTRALIA

An Australian company has secured an international corporate deal, that will save 750,000 hectares of rainforest in Indonesia.

The company, Carbon Conservation, has persuaded Wall St banker Merrill Lynch to sink $AUD9 million into local businesses in Aceh which could be worth $AUD400 million in carbon credits for the bank.Carbon Conservation CEO, Dorje Sun, says the forest will be guarded by 1000 heavily armed former Free Aceh rebels.

He says 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide will now stay locked in the rainforest."Never before in history has there been a commercial bank, with commercial returns in mind to actually pay people, community owners in Aceh, for the protection and the utility the rainforests provide there," he says.