Report On TFFF Exposes Flaws, Urges Real Forest Protection

UTRECHT/LA PAZ, 24 APRIL 2025 –NGOs including forest people’s rights groups are raising deep concerns about a new $125 billion market mechanism called the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) that has been proposed to incentivise the preservation of tropical forests and is expected to launch at this year’s UN Climate Conference (COP30) in Belém. It is being spearheaded by the governments of Brazil, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which contain more than half of the world’s rainforests.

A new report from the Global Forest Coalition (GFC) and Fundación Solón explains what is known so far about the TFFF and highlights many questions that are cause for alarm. These include whether allocating just $4 per hectare of jungle could solve the "market failure" that TFFF proponents claim is behind deforestation, and why the future of tropical forests should have to rely on private investment while public funding increasingly goes to high-emission sectors such as the military.

“Forests are not commodities to be traded on financial markets,” said Mary Louise Malig, GFC policy director and co-author of the report. “They are complex living ecosystems with intrinsic value, essential to the livelihoods of countless communities and the health of our planet. The TFFF reduces their worth to a mere dollar-per-hectare figure, which is not only wholly inadequate but fundamentally misguided.”

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“The climate emergency is not a market failure but a failure of governance and responsibility. We need to confront the structural drivers of deforestation and invest in real solutions that empower local communities,” added Pablo Solón, director of Fundación Solón and co-author of the report. “Climate finance has long-since been co-opted by corporate interests, and the TFFF is no different — the alarm bells should be ringing for us all. The TFFF is a shiny new tool for greenwashing, designed to attract investment rather than tackle the systemic drivers of deforestation.”

Market mechanisms like carbon trading and offsets have proven to be a flawed way of helping frontline communities and instead allow polluters to continue business as usual. This is why they are known among civil society as false solutions; they ignore the root causes of the climate and biodiversity crisis.

“By sidelining Indigenous voices and decision-making power, particularly women, the TFFF perpetuates the same systems of governance that have historically oppressed these communities,” explained Kwami Kpondzo, a campaign coordinator at GFC. “Forest conservation mechanisms must take into consideration Indigenous traditional knowledge and prioritise the rights and needs of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, Afro-descendant peoples, women, and youth who manage over half of the world’s remaining intact forests.”

The new report on the TFFF also champions the establishment of an alternative non-market finance mechanism that provides sustainable funding levels directly to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. “The climate crisis cannot be solved by mechanisms that perpetuate inequality,” said Satrio Manggala of GFC member organisation WALHI Indonesia. “We need solutions that give direct power to Indigenous Peoples and women, who are the true stewards of our forests, rather than sidelining them in favour of market-driven approaches.”

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