Indonesia will revoke existing forestry licenses held by palm oil and timber firms to save natural forests under a $1 billion climate change deal signed with Norway last week, a government official said on Monday. Indonesia's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who announced the deal last week in Oslo, said new concessions for the conversion of natural forest and peatlands would be suspended for two years. But he did not say at the time how existing concessions would be affected. Preserving forests is seen as crucial to slowing climate change because trees absorb enormous amounts of greenhouse gases.

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