Costa Rica will sell close to 3,000 tons of carbon credits to Equator, a United States company that specializes in carbon credit management, according to the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Telecommunications (MINAET).

The sale represents Costa Rica's first carbon credit transaction and is the result of negotiations in New York City last week after a United Nations summit on climate change. The sale is expected to bring $9 million to the country.

The government will deposit the money into the National Forestry Financing Fund and use part of the cash to replant 2,000 hectares of forest near Cinchona, a town north of San José that was destroyed by an earthquake on Jan. 8.

The rest of the money will be used for conservation practices such as support for the environmental services program that pays rural residents to protect nearby natural resources, such as forests and waterways.

Equator will buy one million carbon credits that Costa Rica produced from 2002 through 2009 – called “old carbon” – and almost two million credits for “new carbon” that the country expects to produce from 2010 through 2013.