On the side-lines of the UN climate conference in 2023 in the United Arab Emirates, the government of Brazil introduced the “Tropical Forests Forever Facility” (TFFF). The fund, an idea initially thought up by the World Bank in 2018, is expected to be launched at the 2025 UN climate conference in the Amazon city of in Belem, in Brazil. Private sector and public investments and donations would provide the seed capital for financial managers to speculate on capital markets. If there is money left over from the financial gambles after payment of dividends to the TFFF investors, that money will be divided among countries in the global South to finance forest protection initiatives. In March 2025, the Bolivian Fundación Solon published a critique of the TFFF. It echoes major flaws identified by the thinktank Green Finance Observatory: (1) the investment is structured in favour of rich countries and investors; (2) conservation funding for tropical forests is made conditional on betting on stock markets; and (3) the TFFF could be used by rich countries to avoid conservation funding requests from the global South. The Tropical Forests Forever Facility - “The worst conservation fund ever”, writes the online portal REDD-Monitor.
(1) Fundación Solón. TFFF: Una falsa solución para los bosques tropicales.
Green Finance Observatory: The many questions raised by the Tropical Forests Forever Facility.