Project Syndicate
The world’s tropical forests help keep our planet alive, yet destroying them often pays more than protecting them.
Who Will Pay to Preserve Tropical Forests?
Author: Carlos Nobre and Lee White
SÃO PAULO/STIRLING—The enormous climate, water, and biodiversity benefits generated by
tropical forests accrue to the entire world. But hardly any of the economic value created is
captured by the countries and communities that safeguard them. The Tropical Forest Forever
Facility (TFFF) was launched at last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30)
in Belém to start correcting this imbalance.
For too long, it has been more profitable to destroy tropical forests than to conserve them, even
though they provide services essential for the survival of many countries and for the welfare of
us all. The Amazon recycles nearly half of its rainfall and exports moisture that shapes
precipitation patterns across South America and beyond. The Congo Basin, with its peatlands
that store roughly 30 billion tons of carbon, is one of the planet’s great carbon reservoirs, while
many of the plant and animal species in Borneo are found nowhere else on Earth.
Moreover, across the tropics, forests support the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of
people—including Indigenous communities whose stewardship is often essential for maintaining
them—while also sustaining local cultures and bolstering food and water security.
But market prices do not adequately reflect these benefits, creating an economic barrier that all
tropical regions bump up against: in the short term, clearing a hectare of forest can generate more
income than protecting it, even when the long-term costs of forest loss are much greater. As a
result, cattle ranching and agricultural expansion exert enormous pressure on the Amazon, small-
and large-scale agriculture contribute to forest conversion in the Congo Basin, and industrial
plantations have transformed sylvan landscapes in Southeast Asia.
Worryingly, a recent brief by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network emphasizes
that international public finance remains far below the estimated investment required for
conserving tropical forests, and that competition for declining official development aid is
intensifying.
Grants and concessional loans remain indispensable for strengthening institutions, protecting
rights, restoring degraded landscapes, and supporting activities with large social and ecological
returns but limited commercial returns. Yet, traditional development finance alone cannot close
the gap. Nor should scarce public resources be used simply to absorb risks for private investors.
This is where the TFFF comes in. It is designed to provide eligible tropical-forest countries with
predictable, long-term payments for maintaining forest cover and meeting agreed performance
criteria. This changes the economic incentives: according to the TFFF’s current model, countries
will forgo around $400 per deforested hectare. Because each hectare of standing tropical forest
increases a country’s payment, policymakers may be more willing to implement robust national
strategies that complement the TFFF, like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation (REDD+).
The TFFF’s proposed architecture includes a commitment to direct at least 20% of payments to
Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, who play an outsize role in protecting forests but
have historically received only a small share of international climate and nature finance. The real
test will be whether this commitment results in predictable funding that reaches those managing
forests on the ground and, in the process, reinforces local governance.
Of course, the TFFF is not a silver bullet. No single solution can close the financing gap for
tropical-forest conservation. Public and private funding, domestic expenditure, concessional
loans, grants, results-based payments, and new investment mechanisms must all play a role.
Perhaps more importantly, no financial mechanism can compensate indefinitely for incentives
that continue to encourage deforestation. To change them, policymakers must intervene.
The TFFF has a role to play here, too. To succeed, it must not only mobilize enough capital to
translate global commitments into predictable payments on the ground, but also support
governments in implementing policies that protect forests and complement existing forest-
finance instruments. These include strengthening land rights and environmental governance,
repurposing harmful subsidies, supporting restoration, and expanding viable economic
opportunities compatible with standing forests.
For decades, the international community has acknowledged the extraordinary value of tropical
forests while failing to invest adequately in their conservation. Ensuring that they remain
standing is in everyone’s interests. The challenge now is to use all tools at our disposal, not least
the TFFF, to turn talk into action.
Carlos Nobre, a senior scientist at the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Advanced Studies,
is Co-Chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon. Lee White, a former minister of water,
forests, the sea, and environment of Gabon, is an honorary professor at the University of
Stirling and Special Envoy of the Science Panel for the Congo Basin.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2026.
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