Tropical forests help regulate the global climate, host irreplaceable biodiversity and provide fresh water resources. Plus forests in general are the source of livelihoods for more than a billion people — so our very existence depends on them. However, because their value is not reflected in markets, these areas are often converted to other uses. Conserving our tropical forests requires large-scale and predictable finance. A menu of financing options to conserve tropical forests and reverse ongoing deforestation could include high-integrity carbon markets, private investment in nature-based solutions, promoting sustainable products from forests, and incorporating the value of forests in funding decisions by commercial and multilateral development banks. And the timing for that is now — the road to the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, provides a unique window to summon public, private and philanthropic actors to mobilize large-scale finance to pay for the true value of forests and ensure their vital existence. A proposal on the table — launched by Brazil during COP28 and supported by several tropical and potential investor countries, experts, civil society organizations, and Indigenous and local community organizations — can provide substantial resources to conserve standing forests at an unprecedented scale that’s independent of short-term political cycles. Oil palm planation on the left and intact tropical rainforest at the right, Sumatra, Indonesia. Image by Rhett Ayers Butler/Mongabay. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility Most forest conservation funding comes from national budgets to finance activities such as forest protection, fire prevention, promotion of bioeconomy projects and payments…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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