“We believe it is crucial to have forests and forest protection” to meet international climate goals, Michael Huettner, a manager with the German Environmental Ministry, said in an interview here.

Developing countries have made clear that the more financial help they get, the more they will be able to do to conserve their forests. They say they need the money not only to tighten their law enforcement, but also to create economic development that could draw poor people away from illegal logging and land clearing.

“If I had one bag of money, I’d be giving it to the Brazilians and the forest countries to sort themselves out,” said Andrew Mitchell, executive director of the Global Canopy Program, a forestry think tank in Oxford, England. “It’s demonstrably faster and cheaper than anything else we could do.”

Several national delegations here — including Brazil’s — said they intended to act on their forest plans regardless of the language in the final agreement. That reflects a growing recognition that ending forest loss, and allowing forests to regrow in some places where they were chopped down, are essential to limit the risks of global warming.