Held in the gateway to the world’s largest tropical forest, COP30 concluded on November 22nd with more than US$ 6.7 billion in announced contributions to the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) and the endorsement of the Launch Declaration by 66 countries – both tropical forests countries and potential investors.
Norway announced an investment of US$ 3 billion and Germany a contribution of € 1 billion over ten years; President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reaffirmed a contribution of US$ 1 billion, matched by that from Indonesia in the same amount; France committed € 500 million, with conditions. The Netherlands announced US$ 5 million and Portugal US$ 1 million to support the TFFF Secretariat; and finally, the Minderoo Foundation announced US$ 10 million in investments into the TFFF.
66 countries with tropical forests and potential investor countries have endorsed the TFFF Launch Declaration: Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Denmark, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Liberia, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Rwanda, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Sweden, Suriname, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Zambia and the European Union.
Importantly, developing countries that are home to over 90% of the world’s tropical forests have endorsed the declaration, demonstrating an unambiguous demand for a mechanism that will contribute to making forests more valuable standing than destroyed.
At the TFFF Launch Event, on November 6, President Lula stated: “Forests are worth more standing than cut down. They should be integrated into the GDP of our countries. The ecosystem services they provide to humanity must be compensated, as well as the people who protect the forests. International green and climate funds are not up to the challenges posed by climate change. It was with this sense of urgency that, since COP28, we have brought together a group of tropical forest countries and investor countries to design this facility”.
He then completed: “The Tropical Forest Facility will be one of the main concrete outcomes in the spirit of implementation of COP30. It is symbolic that the celebration of its birth takes place here in Belém, surrounded by sumaúmas, açaí palms, andirobas, and jacarandás. In just a few years, we will be able to see the fruits of this Facility. We will be proud to remember that it was in the heart of the Amazon rainforest that we took this step together”.
Also at the TFFF Launch Event, Norway’s Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, said: “It is vital to stop deforestation to reduce the impacts of climate change and limit biodiversity loss. There is no time to lose if we are to save the world’s tropical forests. The new Tropical Forest Forever Facility can provide stable, long-term funding to relevant countries. It is important for Norway to support this initiative”.
In a press release issued by the German government on November 21st, Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider was quoted saying: “Without what tropical forests provide for us all, humanity would be much poorer. That is why I am so grateful for President Lula’s magnificent initiative for the global protection of tropical forests. I am convinced that this is money very well spent. We are leveraging the market to protect the forest. It is particularly important that 20 percent of the funds go directly to the indigenous population who live in and from the forest. Because where indigenous people live, the forest thrives. The goal is for people to be able to live from the forest, not from its destruction”.
TFFF events at COP30
At COP30, several events discussed the TFFF, four of which were organized by the Government of Brazil. The first side event, on November 15th, presented initial ideas around the TFFF Country Access Platform, a digital hub to be co-designed by Systemiq and UNDP to streamline eligibility guidance, connect countries with technical partners, and strengthen South–South collaboration. Colombia, Indonesia, and the DRC emphasized the importance of coordinated support to enable tropical nations to access TFFF funding. Several potential technical partners, such as WWF, TNC, CI, FAO, presented how they could support tropical forest countries in accessing the TFFF.
On November 17th, a high-level event discussed options to close the forest finance gap as outlined in the Forest Finance Roadmap. The Roadmap outlines six priority approaches, including the TFFF (in addition to forest carbon markets, private sector capitalization mobilization for bioeconomy, among others) and calls for the collaboration between public and private entities to unlock large-scale forest finance. The event was attended, among others, by Irene Vélez, Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development; Ed Miliband, the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero; Marie Nyange, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Minister of Environment, Sustainable Development, and Climate Economy; Vickram Bharrat, Guyana’s Minister for Natural Resources; and Andreas Bjelland Eriksen, Norway’s Minister of Climate and the Environment.
The third event — a high-level panel featured Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development; Andreas Bjelland Eriksen, Norway’s Minister of Climate and Environment; and Juan Carlos Jintiach, Executive Secretary of GATC and Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities’ (IPLC) representative. The discussion provided updates on the Facility’s institutional setup and forthcoming milestones following the World Bank’s confirmation as Trustee and Interim Host, reinforcing the TFFF’s role as a global cooperation mechanism capable of mobilizing substantial capital without increasing debt burdens for developing countries. Participants emphasized that the TFFF’s results-based, blended finance model can incentivize measurable reductions in deforestation while strengthening national strategies, supporting community-led conservation, and ensuring indigenous and local communities are central to implementation.
Finally, on November 18, the event “From Finance to Forests: How the TFFF Will Promote Positive Incentives and Improve Community Well-Being”, focused on how TFFF payments can drive large-scale conservation incentives while improving conditions for local communities. It featured Jochen Flasbarth, State Secretary at Germany’s Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety; Rómulo Acurio, Ambassador of Peru; and Sonia Guajajara, Brazil’s Minister of Indigenous Peoples. Brazil and Peru presented how they intend to allocate TFFF forest payments domestically, outlining approaches that prioritize high-impact mechanisms where beneficiary countries retain decision-making authority over resource allocation. Panelists highlighted that channeling finance through nationally governed instruments—such as Payment for Environmental Services (PES) schemes and bioeconomy incentives—maximizes conservation impact while improving the well-being of IPLCs and local communities.
The TFFF is a historic paradigm shift in global efforts to protect and restore tropical forests, as the facility will address a market failure and recognize the value of, and pay for, the ecosystem services provided by tropical forests to the world. The TFFF creates an unprecedented global financial incentive to protect standing tropical forests, rather than destroying them.
Key innovative elements of the TFFF:
TFFF has the potential to support the protection of over 1 billion hectares of tropical forests in over 70 developing countries.
Payments to countries will be based on satellite remote sensing data that tracks forest canopy cover annually in a low-cost and transparent manner.
The TFFF design was led by Brazil in partnership with DRC, Ghana, Malaysia, Indonesia, Colombia, the UK, Germany, Norway, France, the UAE, and counted with the valuable contributions of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
The TFFF will be built by finance from traditional as well as non-traditional sovereign sponsor governments, philanthropy, family offices, and private sector investors.
The TFFF has a mandatory allocation of at least 20% of payments to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities – reinforcing a transformative shift in access for IPLCs.
The TFFF asset allocation will exclude investments that have a significant environmental impact, such as those causing deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. The TFFF will not invest in activities related to coal, peat, oil, or gas. Asset allocation must support, or at the very least not significantly harm, the overarching objectives of the TFFF.
The TFFF has a potential to increase manyfold the budgets of the Environment Ministries in Tropical Forest Countries.
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About The Tropical Forest Forever Facility
The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) is where conservation meets capital creation. It is a once-in-a-generation facility that secures the future of tropical forests and guarantees returns for investors. This novel global funding mechanism is designed to finance the permanent conservation of tropical and subtropical broadleaf moist rainforests by directly compensating countries and forest stewards for their efforts to maintain or increase their forest cover. Find out more at https://tfff.earth/about-tfff/, and the Executive Summary can be found here.
