REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - A new agency to protect Indonesia's rain forests is ready to begin work to implement a first of its kind environmental program. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed Presidential Regulation No. 62/2013 on August 31, 2013, entitled Managing Body for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), concluding a process that took more than two years. 

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, known as REDD+, is a UN-designed program to ensure that it becomes more profitable for developing countries to leave their rainforests intact, rather than chopping down forests and selling the wood. As part of the program, rich countries are expected to pay forested nations to preserve their trees.

The new REDD+ Agency seeks emissions reductions by preventing deforestation and forest degradation, including in peatlands, and to ensure that these efforts are properly managed. The REDD Agency is crucial to help realize the governments commitment to the reduction of CO2 emissions in Indonesia by 26 percent by 2020, and by 40 percent with international support. The commitment was announced by President Yudhoyono in October 2009. 

The Government of Norway welcomed the Indonesian commitment and agreed to sign a Letter of Intent (LoI) with Indonesia on May 26, 2010. Norway has pledged to provide assistance worth 1 billion USD to Indonesia, based upon verified emissions reductions as part of the REDD+ plan.