Much devastation has been visited upon the area already. Oddar Meanchey became a stronghold of the Khmer Rouge after a Vietnamese invasion ousted the fanatical revolutionaries in 1979. Khmer Rouge leaders and their depleted militia held out here against the new regime until the late '90s, funding their campaign by selling timber to dealers in neighboring Thailand. The area has since opened up to the outside world but remains depressed, with poor infrastructure and few economic opportunities. Pact, the NGO that has facilitated the carbon credit application process for the province's community forests, says the revenues will fund development initiatives, including the building of roads, schools and hospitals, and support local employment. (See pictures of the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge.)

Leslie Durschinger, managing director of Terra Global Capital, the San Francisco–based company that is marketing Oddar Meanchey's carbon assets, anticipates that the forests could garner as much as $50 million over the course of 30 years (the typical duration of a REDD contract). First, however, Oddar Meanchey's carbon assets must be jointly validated by the Verified Carbon Standard and the Climate Community and Biodiversity Standard, both third-party carbon auditors, as well as attract a buyer. For now, the revenue remains theoretical: clean technologies, renewable energy and technology transfers earn credit as offsets in legislated carbon markets, but REDD has yet to gain official currency.

The European Union Emission Trading System - which, with tens of billions of dollars in annual trade, is the largest mandatory carbon market - has placed a moratorium on considering REDD credits until 2020. The fledgling California Compliance Market, one of a handful of American state bodies to regulate carbon emissions in the absence of federal laws on the matter, is the only public compliance body in the world that has committed to accepting REDD credits. The U.N.'s proposed international REDD system was outlined in CancÚn last December during an annual climate-change summit, but disagreements about how it should be funded prevented the mechanism from being implemented. Member states will meet again in December, in Durban, South Africa, to try to push through a binding REDD program.

Critics of REDD argue that forest fires and illegal loggers make avoided deforestation credits an easy bank to rob. "We've had so many credibility questions with the carbon market [in general] ... so something like REDD needs time to get off the ground before it should be included" in carbon compliance markets, says Sanjeev Kumar, a climate and energy policy specialist based in Brussels for E3G, a sustainable development nonprofit group. There are also significant and legitimate concerns about the allocation of REDD revenue in a country like Cambodia, which Transparency International routinely ranks among the most corrupt governments in the world. Cambodia, like many countries, requires that revenue earned from state land be funneled through the government.

For now, Oddar Meanchey's carbon credits will be offered on a voluntary market driven by governments and companies hoping to establish themselves as ecologically conscious or anticipating future compliance requirements. Vann Sophanna, a high-ranking official in the government's Forestry Administration, says state-sanctioned REDD contracts for the forests will empower residents to confront loggers by putting the full weight of the state's authority on their side. "Villagers can have those who try to destroy the forest - even if they are police, soldiers or forestry administration officials - arrested," he says. "We will enforce the law." But it's precisely the role of the government that leaves residents in doubt. "The money might go to the people, or it might go to corrupt officials," said 58-year-old Kuy Thourn, a village leader. "We will find out."