The world is losing vast tracts of forests each year to agriculture, logging, mining, and fires—more than 20 million acres in 2024 alone, about the size of South Carolina.
This is bad news, since tropical forests in particular regulate rainfall, support plant and animal species, and act as a thermostat for the planet by storing carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere, where it would warm the planet. The United Nations estimates that global deforestation and forest degradation contribute approximately 11% of total greenhouse gas emissions.
Over the years, countries have committed to reversing that forest loss, and many organizations, governments, and indigenous and local communities are working hard to advance those goals. Many of their efforts were, at least partially, successful.
For example, Brazil attributes strengthened law enforcement and better oversight at the state and national levels to reducing illegal clearing and deforestation in the Amazon. The deforestation rate in that region was reduced by 31% between 2023 and 2024.
Funding from governments and the private sector is helping communities restore already deforested lands. Other programs protect forests through payments for ecosystem services, such as paying landowners to maintain existing forests and the benefits they provide. These programs award money to a government, community, or landowner based on verified results that show the forest is being protected over time.
However, despite these and many other efforts, the world is not meeting its commitments to protect tropical forests. The planet lost 6.7 million hectares of tropical forest, almost 67,000 square kilometers, in 2024 alone.
Law enforcement alone is not enough. When law enforcement weakens, as happened in Brazil between 2019 and 2023, illegal deforestation and forest loss increase again. Programs that pay landowners to keep forests standing also have drawbacks. Research showed that they could reduce deforestation only temporarily if payments are not maintained in the long term.
The problem is that deforestation is often driven by economic factors such as global demand for crops, livestock and minerals such as gold and copper. This demand provides important incentives for farmers, companies and governments to continue clearing forests.
The amount of money committed to protecting forests globally is about US$5.7 billion a year, a fraction of the tens of billions of dollars that banks and investors invest in companies driving deforestation.
Simply put, the magnitude of the deforestation problem is enormous and new efforts are needed to truly reverse the economic drivers or causes of deforestation.
To increase funding for tropical forest protection, Brazil launched a global program on November 6, 2025, ahead of the annual UN climate conference, called the Tropical Forests Forever Fund (TFFF). This is an innovative approach that combines funds from countries and private investors to compensate countries for preserving tropical forests.
As an environmental law expert working on climate policy development, including the protection of tropical forests, I think the program design is very promising. However, I also see room for improvement, involving states and provinces to ensure that funds reach more concrete programs that benefit the environment.
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What makes the Forever Tropical Forests Fund different?
The Forever Tropical Forests Fund seeks to address the problem of deforestation by focusing on scale, both geographical and economic.
First, it will measure results across entire countries, rather than at the level of smallholders. This can help reduce deforestation more broadly within countries and influence national policies that currently contribute to deforestation. It focuses on the protected forest area, rather than estimating the amount of carbon present in the trees.
Second, it seeks to raise billions of dollars. This is important to counteract the economic incentives that encourage the clearing of forests for agriculture, livestock and logging.
The mechanics of raising these funds are intriguing: Brazil is seeking initial funding of $25 billion from national governments and foundations, and subsequently another $100 billion from investors. These funds would be invested in securities—such as stock and bond markets—and the returns from those investments, after a percentage payment to investors, would go to countries that demonstrate successful forest protection.
These countries are expected to invest their results-based payments in forest conservation initiatives, in particular to support communities carrying out protection work on the ground, ensuring that at least 20% directly supports local communities and indigenous peoples, whose territories often have the lowest rates of deforestation thanks to their efforts.
Finally, the Forever Tropical Forests Fund recognizes that, like previous initiatives, it is not a silver bullet. It is being designed to complement other programs and policies, including carbon market approaches that raise funds for forest protection by selling carbon credits to governments and companies that need to reduce their emissions.
What has the reaction been to date?
The new forest investment fund is generating interest due to its size, ambition and design.
Brazil and Indonesia were the first to contribute, committing $1 billion each. Norway added $3 billion on Nov. 7, and several other countries also pledged support.
The Forever Rainforests Fund still has a long way to go to reach its $125 billion goal, but is likely to make additional commitments during the UN climate conference, COP30, to be held from November 10 to 21, 2025 in Brazil. World leaders and negotiators will meet in the Amazon for the first time.
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How can the Forever Tropical Forests Fund be improved?
The design of the Forever Rainforests Fund drew some criticism, both for the way the money is raised and its distribution through national governments. While the fund’s design could attract more investors, if its investments do not generate a solid return in a given year, the fund could not receive funds, likely leaving a shortfall in expected payments to programs and communities that protect forests.
Many existing international funding programs also provide funding exclusively to national governments, such as the Amazon Fund and the United Nations Global Environment Facility. However, much of the work to reduce deforestation, from policy innovation to implementation and enforcement, takes place at the state and provincial level.
One way to improve the implementation of the Forever Rainforests Fund would be to include state and provincial governments in decisions about how payments will be used and ensure that those funds reach the people operating in their territories.
The Governors’ Working Group on Climate and Forests, a group of 45 states and provinces from 11 countries, was providing feedback on how to incorporate this recommendation.
The working group developed a Plan for a New Forest Economy, which can help connect initiatives like the Forever Tropical Forests Fund with forest protection initiatives at the state and community levels, so that funding reaches projects that can generate benefits for forest protection.
The Tropical Forests Forever Fund is an example of the type of innovative mechanism that could accelerate global action. But to truly succeed, it will require coordination with state and provincial governments, communities and other actors working on the ground. The world’s forests—and their people—depend on it.
*Jason Gray is an environmental attorney at the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California.
This text was originally published in The Conversation
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