The government of Brazil has created a new investment fund with which it hopes to raise funds to reward countries that protect their tropical forests and, with particular attention, those that inhabit and preserve them for centuries thanks to their sustainable lifestyle. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva presented the financial instrument, called Forever Tropical Forests Fund (FTTT), to his counterparts who came from all over the world to participate in the first climate summit that the UN is holding in the Amazon, in the city of Belém. “The benefits of the fund will be for countries that have tropical forests and for investors,” he explained. In a single day, the financial instrument attracted pledges from a handful of countries, led by Norway, of around $5.5 billion, Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad revealed.
The summit of presidents on Thursday and Friday is the prelude to COP30, the negotiation in which all the countries on the planet seek consensus to fight the climate crisis. Since the Amazon and the rest of the great tropical forests help regulate planetary temperatures, Brazil has used its ingenuity and joined green capitalism. It created the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (FTTT) together with other countries with jungle, such as Indonesia or Congo, and several developed countries.
For Brazil, the main Amazon country, which is home to 60% of the world’s largest tropical forest, the initiative starts with the advantage of having been launched by a group of countries that own these crucial forests for absorbing harmful emissions and by developed countries. Lula also insisted that the FTTT marks the end of the era of donations to protect these precious ecosystems, because it leaves recipient countries subject to deadlines and limitations imposed by donors.
Minister Haddad underlined to the press in Belém that 53 countries had expressed their support from the beginning. Few have gone further and pulled out their checkbooks. Brazil announced its contribution of one billion dollars a few weeks ago. Soon Indonesia, another of the countries with the largest number of jungles on its territory, announced the same investment. The idea was to attract others. Norway, the main donor of sustainable projects in the Brazilian Amazon, especially against deforestation, announced at the opening of the summit 3 billion dollars, which it will pay only if there are significant contributions from others, France has promised 500 million euros (583 million dollars) and Portugal 100 million. Germany will announce its investment this Friday, according to the Brazilian government.
Brazil aims to raise around 10 billion from public investors by 2026 and thus attract private contributions in much larger volumes. It reached the figure of 125,000 million in investments. The benefits will be shared between countries that conserve their forests, and a fifth will go to indigenous peoples and other guardians of nature. The sector minister, Sonia Gujajara, praised the fact that the fund is also the result of dialogue with indigenous populations.
“This project is just what the world needed,” enthused Norwegian Environment Minister Andreas Bjelland Eriksen. And, when asked about the risks of such an investment, he recalled that “in the market there are no benefits without taking risks”. Your country knows this well, as it has the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, fueled by oil. “There is a risk in investing, but there is a greater risk in not investing,” he added, immediately underlining that the effects of the destruction of the Amazon or other tropical forests will be felt throughout the planet.
Meanwhile, Marina Silva, Brazilian Minister of Environment and Climate Change, underlined that “taxpayers will be happy because it is an investment with a guaranteed benefit and which also protects forests, prevents drought and contributes to climate balance”.
The Climate Observatory, an alliance of 160 NGOs, highlights in a recent note that one of the fund’s big challenges is to become a more profitable investment than clearing jungle or any illicit activity that damages these ecosystems.
