Treating a crisis, like prescribing medicine, can produce some unpleasant side effects, but in the fight against the climate crisis, saving forests presents gains all around. Although forests have been disappearing rapidly, the good news is that forest protection works, and some proposed mechanisms hold promise. But there is a long way to go: the follow-up to the Copenhagen summit of climate negotiations is a chance to steer action in the right direction.

Rich in biodiversity and home to more than a billion people, forests store carbon, provide fuel, food, and lumber, and regulate local water flows and climates. But tropical forests have been vanishing at an annual rate of more than seven million hectares: a Panama every year. This deforestation is responsible for a sixth of greenhouse gas emissions—more than those emissions from all transportation networks.

The basic problem is that some people make a living from tearing down forests to pave way for fields and pastures. But their gains are pitifully small in relation to the benefits of leaving the forests standing. At the edge of the Amazon, ranchers cut down a hectare of forest to create a pasture worth perhaps $500 while releasing hundreds of tons of CO2, whose abatement—if valued at today’s $20 a ton on the European market—would be worth over $10,000.

The crucial step is to arbitrage this difference, valuing standing trees and using that value to reward those who manage forests sustainably. The resulting forest conservation can substantially reduce net carbon emissions from fossil fuels. The greatest potential for carbon saving in forests is in tropical and subtropical regions of Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

The Kyoto Protocol permitted industrial countries to meet emission limits by investing in reforestation, not by protecting forests. The REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) initiative –which has received a strong boost at the Copenhagen summit– seeks to reward countries for reducing deforestation. And supportive pilots are under way, including the Norwegian Climate and Forest Initiative and the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility.

The question is whether the tools exist to encourage sustainable forestry. A source of inspiration is the experience with protected and indigenous areas that now cover more than a quarter of the remaining tropical forest. Fresh evidence from Latin America, Africa, and Asia shows that they reduce deforestation. More surprising, mixed-use protection—where forest dwellers can carry on sustainable forest use—is at least as effective as strict protection. And areas under indigenous people are most effective.

Such evidence provides support for including a broad concept of REDD in the post-2012 climate change regime—with provisions for its sustainable financing. To get good results, however, that effort needs to be supported by actions on three fronts.

First, countries need to improve forest governance by clarifying land and forest tenure. Paying the forest’s protectors will work only if we know where to send the check. But in many places there is no forest control. Progress requires resolving conflicts over forest ownership, adjudicating land rights, framing forest use regulations, and shielding forest holders from encroachers.

Second, the international community needs to help intensify agriculture rather than allow it to spread into infertile forest lands. Deforestation is driven by the growing demands for food and timber. To ensure that these pressures are eased, and not merely deflected from one forest to another, farmers need to produce more soybeans, palm oil, beef, and wood from currently degraded lands. In this way REDD and rural development can be mutually supportive.

Third, we need better data and monitoring to support markets in credit. There still is no global carbon monitoring system for forests. For a national REDD program, reliable monitoring will be necessary to enforce forest regulations, frame contracts, and provide feedback on innovations. It will also bring much-needed transparency to forest administration, so often plagued by corruption.

The climate crisis has established an urgent rationale for making care of forests a top priority. With the support forest protection has received at Copenhagen, the world can get down to helping people manage their farms and forests better while reducing the threats of climate change.

*Vinod Thomas is Director-General and Kenneth Chomitz is Senior Adviser at the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank