A proposed alternative for reducing GHG emissions—payiing developing countries to forego fossil fuel exploitation in tropical forests, or "compensated moratoria"—could serve an important role in future climate change regulation. Ecuador's proposal to impose a moratorium on oil exploitation in the Amazon rainforest—the Yasuní-ITT Initiative—illustrates how compensated moratoria could help to improve the shortcomings of prevailing policy mechanisms for mitigating GHG emissions in developing countries. Compensated moratoria should receive serious consideration as a tool to both lower the growth of GHG emissions in developing countries and to facilitate future climate change negotiations bewteen developed and developing countries.