The Tropical Forest Forever Facility is the most ambitious forest protection fund in history, creating a $125 billion programme to pay countries in return for safeguarding their forests.
Tropical forests are essential to the planet’s health, yet for decades they have been cut down at alarming speed, with 6.7 million hectares lost in 2024 alone.
Despite repeated global pledges and promises, deforestation has continued largely unchecked. The underlying reason is economic: clearing forests has been consistently more profitable than protecting them. Without a financial model that can reverse this incentive, governments, communities, and markets will inevitably favour short-term gains over long-term protection.
Traditional funding schemes have fallen short. For private investors, forest protection has often seemed too risky or complex. For forest nations, raising reliable finance to preserve these ecosystems has been difficult and unsustainable.
Yet when conservation becomes commercially viable, people and markets do respond. The challenge, then, is to design a mechanism that makes preservation more valuable than destruction — and that is where the Tropical Forest Forever Facility comes in.
The Tropical Forest Forever Facility is described as the most ambitious forest finance innovation in history. Its purpose is clear: to put real, lasting value on standing forests by reshaping how their protection is financed.
Led by the Government of Brazil and designed with the support of ten countries from the global south and north, alongside Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, it is set to formally launch at COP30.
At the heart of the initiative is a $125 billion global investment fund that provides tropical forest countries with a long-term income in exchange for lasting forest protection. If successful, it could safeguard over a billion hectares of forest across more than 70 countries by 2030.
By combining money from governments, philanthropists, and investors, and reducing risk through guarantees and more flexible financing, it opens the door for large private investment that would not otherwise flow into forest protection.
And to demonstrate early leadership, Brazil became the first country to back the initiative financially, with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announcing a $1 billion commitment to the Tropical Forest Forever Facility at the 80th United Nations General Assembly in September 2025.
Profits from the investment fund are returned to tropical forest countries at a set rate for every hectare of standing forest, tracked and verified through satellite monitoring. By design, at least 20% of these payments will also flow directly to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, who are critical stewards of the land.
This is not aid but a market-based strategy that provides steady, lasting income to tropical forest countries, while generating attractive returns for investors.
In this way, Tropical Forest Forever Facility represents a fundamental shift in the economics of conservation.
Being an Earthshot Prize Finalist is an honor that will help raise global awareness of this initiative, contributing to our efforts to secure public investors and private capital, as well as spreading the message to people around the world about the vital importance of tropical forests to our lives and economies.
It is an unprecedented opportunity to finally ensure that maintaining tropical forests is valued more than their destruction. Through the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, we can change the future of tropical forest conservation and provide long-term funding for those who protect them.
