The management of coastal ecosystems can supplement efforts to reduce emissions from tropical forest degradation.

UNESCO: Social and Human Sciences

But international money may start to flow through the UN's REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) scheme.

BBC: Rio +20: Joining the ecological dots

Large-scale defences are now being marshalled by governments, NGOs, scientists and investors, chief among them an international endeavour known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD.

ECONOMIST: Seeing the wood

The main international effort to speed it up is an idea known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), which pays people in developing countries to leave trees standing.

ECONOMIST: Forests and how to save them

We will take steps nationally and internationally, including under the Convention, to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and to enhance removals of greenhouse gas emissions by forests, including providing enhanced support to developing countries for such purposes.

WHITEHOUSE: THE WHITE HOUSE

At the intergovernmental level, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is a UN initiative to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions by slowing deforestation and to invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development.

FORBES: The Future of Life On Earth: A Two-Part Discussion

And their increasing frequency is an important part of the degradation of the Amazon forest and could be an indicator of large-scale environmental change.

ECONOMIST: A new experiment is setting the Amazon on fire