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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