'A Ransom for the Forests' unravels the complicated issue of carbon credits - the proposed Climate Convention scheme through which polluting nations, instead of reducing their carbon emissions, could offset the carbon they produce by paying less developed nations to plant forests that absorb the equivalent amount of carbon.

Although the way in which this 'trade-off' could work led to the collapse of the international Climate Change conference in the Hague, carbon credits, as a means to reduce global warming, is still on the agenda.

This film takes a look at how this scheme could work in the Carajas region of Brazil.

Factory forests

The iron ore of Carajas, in Brazil's eastern Amazon, is the richest in the world, with enough to last 400 years. But exploitation of this mineral reserve has led to massive deforestation. In order for Brazil's iron ore factories to produce pig iron economically they needed a cheap source of charcoal to fuel their blast furnaces which the Amazon's 'free' forest provided.

Today, the iron factories are running out of wood - driving up the price of charcoal and pig ore production. They're hoping the climate convention will permit carbon credits and allow foreign polluting industries to pay them to convert abandoned pastures into planted forests, providing their factories with a new cheap source of charcoal and the polluting nations with a carbon dioxide-absorbing forest that offsets their greenhouse gas emissions.

The 'price' of carbon credits is yet to be decided and will probably be created by the Climate Convention based on supply and demand. But a median price of $20 per ton of carbon captured, could earn Brazilian iron factories around $2 million a year from carbon credit payments. That's enough to make charcoal from replanted forests economically viable as a fuel for pig iron.

An end to deforestation?

Environmentalists argue that carbon credits allow rich countries to avoid responsibility for their own pollution. On the other hand, some rich nations argue that the climate negotiations are fundamentally unfair - making rich countries 'pay' for their pollution whilst ignoring pollution produced by developing countries, like Brazil.

Even if carbon trading is introduced there is intense debate surrounding different 'types' of carbon credit and their carbon absorbing capacities. For example, tropical forests typically store much more carbon than plantations of eucalyptus, but the Climate Convention does not allow carbon credits to be paid for protecting natural storehouses. As a result, the yearly burning of the Amazonian forests continues because it has no 'value' - releasing carbon equal to half the total worldwide emissions which the Climate Convention is pledged to reduce.

Credit where it's due?

Amazonian replanted forests could play a key part in the international negotiations about carbon control - saving the Carajas region, and other regions like it, from the insatiable economic Leviathan which has been devouring them.

Better still, if carbon credits were paid for the amount of carbon stored, virgin forest would soar in value - making them worth much more money than can now be earned from clearing them - putting an end to the incineration of the Amazon forest.