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Plans for Tropical Forest Forever Facility presented on sidelines of UN General Assembly.
New York – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is supporting the design of an ambitious new global facility for securing the future of tropical forests, discussed at a high-level event in New York this week on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) is an innovative finance instrument being developed to provide long-term, continuous payments to tropical countries for hectares of standing tropical moist forests. The initiative, led by Brazil, is set to be launched at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 30) in Belem, Brazil, in November. Brazil announced a USD 1 billion investment in the Facility at this week’s UNGA event, making it the first country to commit a contribution.
Through its AIM4Forests Programme, funded by the United Kingdom, FAO is providing expertise in designing the monitoring and eligibility requirements for the Facility.
“This is potentially one of the most significant initiatives in the field of international forest finance in recent years,” said FAO Senior Forestry Officer Julian Fox. “As a global leader in innovative forest monitoring, FAO is proud to assist this new facility in supporting countries to keep their tropical forests standing.
A new approach
Combining sovereign capital and private investment, the TFFF aims to establish a USD 125 billion fund which will both remunerate investors and provide long-term stable finance to tropical forest countries, based on verified performance in conserving standing tropical moist forest.
Conceived of and championed by tropical forest countries, the facility requires that at least 20 percent of funds will be directed to Indigenous Peoples and local communities, in recognition of their vital role as stewards of the forest.
FAO’s monitoring expertise
FAO is supporting the design of monitoring and eligibility requirements for the new facility, drawing on its expertise in supporting the operationalization of innovative, transparent and robust national forest monitoring systems in 68 countries.
FAO is working with several tropical forest countries, including Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, to collect data that complies with the requirements of the new facility, using innovative open-source technical solutions from the Open Foris initiative.
“Once the facility is launched, FAO stands ready to support tropical forest countries in fulfilling TFFF forest monitoring requirements and promoting knowledge exchange on positive incentives for conserving standing forests,” said Fox.
Forests economically undervalued
Tropical forests provide essential ecosystem services — from regulating rainfall and storing vast amounts of carbon to sheltering most of the planet’s terrestrial biodiversity. They are also indispensable for food and water security, while underpinning sustainable development and the fight against poverty and hunger. Yet, they remain economically undervalued. FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment shows that primary forests continue to be lost.
The TFFF high-level event, chaired by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was one of a series of “Solution Dialogues” taking place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to generate recommendations for consolidating, accelerating and delivering climate action solutions at pace and scale ahead of COP 30.
The outcomes of the dialogues were presented at the high-level Climate Action event co-hosted by UNSG António Guterres and President Lula on 24 September.
