Carolina Pasquali is executive director of Greenpeace Brazil and Jasper Inventor is executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
In times like these, we must ask ourselves some fundamental questions. Why is war perpetual? Why do so many people lack the basic necessities of life while oligarchs burn a billion dollars to travel to space for a few seconds? Why do we value dead trees but not living forests?
Something is very wrong in the prevailing global logic and systems. For one, we reward the destruction and degradation of the Earth. Reigning economic logic sees value in logs, gold, palm oil, meat and dairy – but none in the Amazon rainforest, or the great forests of Indonesia or the vast Congo Basin in Africa. This green belt of life crosses oceans and sustains all of us – providing clean air, regulating the weather, storing carbon, and basically ensuring a livable Earth.
Yet we allow these forests to be razed, burned, mined or auctioned for carbon credits while a small minority reap the spoils. This plunder that has hurt Indigenous communities for centuries continues to this day, and now threatens all life on Earth with runaway ecological and climate breakdown.
Globally, we lose the equivalent of 11 football fields of forest with each passing minute, resulting in the release of 2.7 gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere—as much as India’s annual fossil fuel’s emission.
Reward those who protect forests
All this could change if a planned new ecologically-minded investment mechanism, the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), is successfully developed. Proposed in Dubai at COP28, the Facility is expected to launch when Brazil hosts the next COP in November.
In simple terms, the Facility proposes to help correct the basic illogic of our global economic system. Instead of rewarding the destruction of the forests, we will reward those who protect them. It is an idea supported by Global South nations around the world.
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With an initial investment of $25 billion raised through high-income countries and philanthropic sources, the Facility will act as an investment portfolio, intending to yield returns for loan providers and eventually generating $4 billion annually for nations that protect their tropical forests.
Initial versions of the TFFF concept have been shared publicly and are now in a period of review. As Executive Directors of Greenpeace offices in tropical forest regions, we welcome the initiative with caution. For too long we have seen empty commitments from companies and governments alike to end deforestation, without success.
Fighting corporate capture
To succeed where so many have failed, the Facility must effectively prevent corporate co-optation and greenwashing. As long-time members of the environmental movement, we have witnessed the steady and alarming pace of corporate capture of our public institutions everywhere. The last three climate COP negotiations were flooded by polluting corporations. Meanwhile civil society, Indigenous groups, and local communities were sidelined in the halls they built—and none of the powerful nations delivered on any of their promises.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva can be successful in his administration’s proposed Facility if it genuinely centres Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This means recognizing that although they make up just 5% of the world’s populations, Indigenous Peoples safeguard at least a fifth of all land on Earth.
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After years of advocacy by tribes in Papua, Indonesia, local governments have begun issuing formal recognition of Indigenous land rights, a true milestone for climate and biodiversity protection.
In Africa, meanwhile, the Congo Basin is gravely threatened by oil drilling, industrial logging, and agribusiness. Its carbon-rich peatlands, crucial for climate stability, face uncertain futures. And in Brazil, the National Congress seeks to advance bills that open Indigenous lands for exploitation and threaten their very existence.
Put forest communities at the centre
Communities across these forests are gravely threatened by violent and insatiable plunder. Yet they have not turned their backs on the forests. Simply put, this Facility must provide the people connected with tropical forests the necessary respect, audience, and funds to protect their ancestral homes.
We need to see mechanisms for direct access of funds to Indigenous Peoples and local communities, along with their strong participation in governance and decision-making structures.
The Facility must also ensure strong monitoring of deforestation and forest degradation methods, and ensure that destructive industries are ineligible for investments. Investments must not further drive biodiversity loss and the climate crisis, or fuel armed conflicts.
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New opportunity to fund forests
Critics of the Facility have cited its controversial origins as well as its potentially misguided attempt to protect forests through assigning monetary value (often too low). They have raised questions about funding sources, monitoring, and mechanisms.
Yet we urgently need to find ambitious means to preserve our great forests. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are short trillions of dollars and TFFF will not be able to fill this gap on its own. But it is a start – an opportunity and a new model that can ultimately halt deforestation and forest degradation globally.
Set to be launched at November’s COP30 in the heart of the Amazon forest, what better homage to the biggest rainforest in the world than for Brazil to announce a truly effective initiative for a change?
In times like these, at our darkest hour, change isn’t just possible—it’s necessary and inevitable. Brazil’s offering is a sign of the change that is to come. This Facility has a critical opportunity to forge a new path that can benefit all life on Earth.