The Forestry Administration has teamed up with the Cambodian Wildlife Conservation Society and Forest Carbon to develop a large-scale REDD project in eastern Cambodia, officials said yesterday.

REDD – or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, a UN initiative – is one of the key programs the Royal Government plans to implement as part of its climate change combat agenda.

“The project is really very strong and will end up being 3 million hectares in Cambodia,” forestry administration spokesman Thun Sarah told the Post. “This is the best way for Cambodia to preserve all its protected forests.”

The first provinces allocated for REDD programs are in Banteay Meanchey and Mondolkiri, both popular for plantations.

“I think that with the technical cooperation [of WCS and Forest Carbon] we will be able to learn a new innovation in finance from the REDD program.

“Now we are beginning to look for buyers, and we calculate that within three years, we will have sold carbon credits for the whole area.”

The REDD scheme allows heavily polluting countries or companies to purchase carbon credits by paying governments and communities to protect forests that process carbon dioxide into oxygen.

At the Kingdom’s recent climate change conference, officials repeatedly stressed the importance of combating climate change in Cambodia and said the issue was high on the national development plan.

During the conference, Environment Minister Mok Mareth said the government was working hard to preserve protected forests and that REDD was one way to achieve this in a financially viable manner.