Since 2023, Brazil has been pushing a new idea to finance the conservation of global tropical forests: Instead of directly donating money to Indigenous and conservation groups, nations and investors would add billions of dollars to a fund, the profits of which would revert to the countries that are doing a good job of keeping forests standing. The initiative — initially called the Tropical Forest Funds Forever and now rebranded as Tropical Forest Finance Facility (TFFF either way) — was presented at the COP28 climate summit, held in Dubai in 2023, with the goal of turning it into reality at COP30, to be held in Belém, Brazil, this November. Even though it received positive feedback overall, doubts remained about whether TFFF could lock in the initial required amount of $25 billion needed for its launch and reach the $125 billion to operate as designed. In recent months, however, Brazilian diplomats have been making progress. In late August, nations of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) endorsed TFFF during a meeting in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. The joint statement presented a chapter supporting and welcoming the initiative. It also encouraged “potential investor countries, multilateral organizations, development banks, climate funds, international cooperation agencies, philanthropy, and the private sector to announce ambitious and concrete contributions to the capitalization of the TFFF, in order to ensure its prompt operationalization.” Brazil had already secured support from Norway, the U.K., Germany, the U.S., the UAE and France, as well as several nations with tropical forests, such as…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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