Indonesia and Norway on Monday signed a deal to reward deforestation reductions months after the collapse of a similar $1 billion deal that was part of a United Nations-backed global initiative that has been criticized for its ineffectiveness.

Protecting trees is key to meeting climate goals, but environmentalists blame Indonesia — home to the world’s third-largest area of ??rainforest — for deforestation for all by allowing companies to clear land for new plantations.

Jakarta claims it has made progress by reducing the rate of primary forest loss for five straight years, and Oslo will now reward it with “results-based contributions” for reducing emissions, Norway’s climate and environment ministry said in a statement .

“We are proud to announce a new partnership today to support the Indonesian government’s impressive results and ambitious plans,” Norway’s Minister for Climate and Environment Espen Barth Eide said in a statement.

However, environmental activists say the deal won’t change the situation in Indonesia, as large tracts of rainforest are still being destroyed to make way for palm and timber plantations that are threatening endangered species and forcing indigenous people off their lands.

“The agreement does not resolve any existing issues, including the recognition of tribal peoples,” Greenpeace Indonesia forest activist Iqbal Damanik told AFP.

“The point at issue is ‘successful reduction of deforestation’, not zero deforestation. That means there is still deforestation in Indonesia.”

The countries signed a landmark deforestation deal in 2010, with Norway offering Indonesia $1 billion to reduce its emissions.

But Jakarta canceled it last year, saying it didn’t see enough money, while research showed it only made a small dent in Indonesia’s carbon reduction targets.

Critics of the United Nations-backed REDD+ mechanism under which the deal was struck said it was ineffective and trampled on the rights of indigenous communities.

Under the new deal, Norway will give Jakarta an initial payment of $56 million for reducing deforestation in 2016-2017, the statement said.

It will then pay Indonesia for years of reductions that followed after deforestation declines were reviewed, meaning it could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Jakarta.

Indonesia has an ambitious target of achieving a net carbon sink – storing more carbon than it puts out into the atmosphere – by 2030, but its vast forests are still shrinking.

According to Global Forest Watch, a monitoring program by environmental research group World Resources Institute, the country’s tree cover has declined 18 percent since 2000, a loss that has since accounted for 6.5 percent of the world total.