When the Kyoto Protocol was being debated in 1997, greenhouse gas emissions from land use change – the vast majority of which are from deforestation – were largely ignored.

Negotiators were unaware of the scale of the emissions because they did not know how to calculate the amount of carbon emitted or saved. Many also felt enforcement would be extremely difficult because of the lawless nature of many forested regions, such as the Congo basin and Indonesia. So, only reforestation and afforestation, or planting new trees, were included in the final agreement.