At the recent un summit on climate change in Montreal, Canada, a group of 10 developing countries led by Papua New Guinea came up with a new proposal. Termed "radical' by the North, the proposal sought financial rewards for developing countries that preserve their tropical forests. The representatives of the 10 nations felt that since the rest of the world was benefiting from the natural wealth of tropical forests, it was only proper that they shared costs of conserving them.

An old argument on payment for environmental services that had begun after the announcement of the Kyoto Protocol (kp) in 1997, resurfaced.

Umpteen researchers have established that tropical forests which absorb greenhouse gases (ghgs)