UN launches project to cut deforestation

The United Nations launched a program on Wednesday that it hopes could be the foundation for a system in which rich countries would pay poor ones to slow climate change by protecting and planting forests.

The new program, called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Program, or UN-REDD, will assist nine developing countries, including Bolivia, Indonesia and Zambia, in establishing systems to monitor, assess and report forest cover.

"Forests are worth more alive than dead ... and their ecosystem services and benefits are worth billions if not trillions of dollars if only we capture these in economic models," said Achim Steiner, the executive director of the UN Environment Program.