Researchers say a pilot program that paid Uganda landowners to not cut down trees, successfully reduced deforestation. For the program, researchers from Northwestern University and Porticus, a Dutch organization, studied 121 villages over two years. In 60 villages they offered landowners $28 a year for every 10,000 square meters of forest they did not cut down. To collect their data, the researchers used interviews, site inspections and satellite images to monitor forests around the villages. Uganda had one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. It loses about 2.7 percent of their forest each year between 2005 and 2010. The study, published in the journal “Science,” found that villages in the payment program had saved 55,000 square meters of forestland more than other villages. In addition, there was not a rush to cut down trees after the program ended.