President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva officially launched the Tropical Forests Forever Fund (TFFF, its acronym in English), during the Climate Summit, in Belém (PA) this Thursday afternoon (6). During the lunch hosted by the Brazilian government, the president invited other nations to support the initiative.
“Forests are worth more standing than when they are cut down. They should be part of our countries’ GDP. Ecosystem services need to be remunerated just like the people who protect the forests. International green funds are not up to the challenge”, says the president.
According to President Lula, the TFFF is an innovative financing tool to help countries conserve tropical forests, present in more than 70 nations, including Brazil.
“The TFFF is not based on donations, its role will be to complement the mechanisms that pay for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Sovereign investments from developed and developing countries, such as leveraging a mixed capital fund. The portfolio will diversify into shares and bonds”, highlighted Lula.
The first contributions will be made by national governments, which will come out ahead with resources that should activate the fund to leverage capital from the private sector. The proposal, designed by the Brazilian government, intends to initially reach US$ 25 billion with country memberships and reach US$ 125 billion with private capital.
Resources generated from investments in projects with high rates of return will finance the maintenance of preserved forest environments per hectare.
“Profits will be shared between tropical forest countries and investors. These resources will go directly to national governments, which will be able to guarantee long-term sovereign programs”, reinforced the president.
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The fund should also ensure that a fifth of the resources are allocated to indigenous peoples and local communities, says the president.
Monitoring the maintenance of standing forests will be done through satellite monitoring capable of identifying compliance with the goal of maintaining deforestation below 0.5% in eligible countries.
According to the president, it will be possible to pay countries US$4 per hectare preserved.
“It seems modest, but we are talking about 1.1 billion hectares of tropical forests spread across 73 developing countries,” says Lula.
The announcement comes after the contribution of US$ 1 billion carried out by the Brazilian government, on September 23, in the first dialogue to present the tool promoted by Brazil and the United Nations secretariat (UNFCCC, its acronym in English), in Brasília.
At the launch of the TFFF, the president also recalled that the World Bank Council will host the financial mechanism and the TFFF secretariat with the governance model also considered innovative.
Lula recalled that several countries with tropical forests and financiers have already announced their support for the mechanism.
“It is symbolic that the celebration of his birth will be held here in Belém, surrounded by kapok trees, açaí trees, andirobas and jacaranda trees. In a few years we will be able to see the fruit of this fund. We will be proud to remember that it was in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest that we took this step together.”
