Measures to save the rainforests will be included in a post-Kyoto climate change treaty, a meeting of 180 countries has agreed. This has achieved what 20 years of campaigning by environmental groups in developed countries has failed to do since the idea of a world forestry convention was first proposed in the 1980s. The agreement on reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries (REDD) gives the green light to "early action" ahead of the treaty coming into force in 2012.
The agreement, a pet initiative of Indonesia which hosted the talks, means that deforestation projects are now likely to attract money from private investors interested in storing up credits that can be redeemed at a higher price in future.
John Lanchbery, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: "Every previous attempt to have a forest convention bombed because it tended to be a bunch of developed countries telling developed countries what to do.
"This was a developing country proposal. It was very cleverly done and avoids all the nasty pitfalls of previous attempts. It is nice and simple. It's about reducing carbon emissions and climate people can understand that."
Credits from avoided deforestation will be stored up in the same way as credits from renewable energy projects were under the Clean Development Mechanism, which created the global market in carbon.
Lord Stern has said recently that it could take between ?5 billion and ?7.5 billion a year to halve deforestation by 2030 - the kind of money that could only come from the private sector.
So far the largest pledge of money to bridge the gap between now and 2012 is ?2.5 billion promised by the Norwegian prime minister this week. Britain promised ?15 million as its contribution to a World Bank pilot scheme.
Around the world, the idea is already popular, with governors in the Amazon, Papua New Guinea and Sumatra queuing up to earn money by avoided deforestation.
In the Amazon, Eduardo Braga, the governor of Amazonas, has already been piloting a payment of $50 a month to forest dwelling families in return for which they do not log or burn the forest.
Indonesia has said that it would select four forests from across the country to pilot the project.
The four forest projects would be located in South, Kalimantan
South Sulawesi, North Sumatra and Southeast Sulawesi. In Aceh, the Governor of Aceh, Irawandi Yousuf, an independence leader who swam to safety when the prison he was in was hit by the tsunami, has declared a logging ban. ,
The RSPB and Burung Indonesia recently bought a 200,000 acre logging concession in Sumatra after it had been logged and are hoping to earn credits from their Harapan Rainforest project.
It is not yet clear, however, how exactly four pilot projects will help reduce overall emissions in Indonesia instead of just push more deforestation elsewhere.