The Problem With COP30’s Big Rainforest Initiative

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.

On Friday, at least 100 Indigenous protesters blocked the entrance to the 30th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, in Belém, Brazil. The action comes on the heels of an action earlier in the week when hundreds of Indigenous people marched into the conference, clashing with security and pushing their way through metal detectors while calling on negotiators to protect their lands.

These actions brought Indigenous voices to the front steps of this year’s global climate summit — where discussions now, and historically, have generally excluded Indigenous peoples and perspectives. World leaders have attempted to acknowledge this omission: Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Indigenous voices should “inspire” COP30, and the host country announced two new plans to protect tropical forests and enshrine Indigenous peoples’ land rights. But demonstrations like last week’s show even these measures are designed with little input from those affected, garnering criticism.

Preserving the Amazon rainforest is critical to mitigating climate change and protecting biodiversity. How this is done is one of the key issues being raised at COP30. Upon the kickoff of the conference, Brazil announced the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, or TFFF, part of a plan to create new financial incentives to protect tropical forest lands in as many as 74 countries, including its own. 

The Tropical Forests Forever Facility has been touted as one of Brazil’s new marquee policies for combating the climate crisis. It also potentially represents an opportunity for Brazil to position itself as a leader on environmental conservation and Indigenous rights. The country has had a historically poor track record on rainforest conservation: By some estimates, 13% of the original Amazon forest has been lost to deforestation. In Brazil, much of that happens because of industrial agriculture — specifically, cattle ranching and soybean production. Research has shown 70% of Amazon land cleared is used for cattle pastures. Brazil is the world’s leading exporter of beef and soybeans, with China as its top consumer for both products. 

The TFFF marks an attempt to flip the economics of extractive industry — by paying governments every year their deforestation rate is 0.5% or lower. It also attempts to highlight the role Indigenous communities already play in stewarding these lands, although critics say it does not go far enough on either goal. 

Under the TFFF, which will be hosted by the World Bank, Brazil seeks to raise $25 billion in investments from other countries as well as philanthropic organizations — and then take that money and grow it fourfold in the bond market. The goal is to create a $125 billion investment fund to be used to reward governments for preserving their standing tropical forest lands. One condition of receiving this funding is that governments must then pass on 20% to Indigenous people and local communities.

The idea underlying the fund is that the TFFF could make leaving tropical forests alone more financially lucrative than tearing them down. In the global climate finance market, there aren’t currently any mechanisms that value “tropical forests and rainforests as the global public good that they are,” said Toerris Jaeger, director of the Rainforest Foundation Norway. These ecosystems “need to be maintained and maintained standing, and that is what TFFF does,” he said.

But critics say the TFFF merely represents another attempt to tie the value of these critical ecosystems to financial markets. “You cannot put a price on a conserved forest because life cannot be measured, and the Amazon is life for the thousands of beings who inhabit it and depend on it to exist,” said Toya Manchineri, an Indigenous leader from the Manchineri people of far western Brazil. Manchineri is also the general coordinator of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon.

He added that setting aside 20% of TFFF funds for Indigenous communities is a good start, but that figure could be much higher. 

Other COP30 attendees have criticized the plan for trying to fight the profit-driven industries that lead to deforestation by giving them a profit motive. “The TFFF isn’t a climate proposal, but it’s another false solution to the planetary crises of biodiversity loss, forest loss and climate collapse,” said Mary Lou Malig, policy director of the Global Forest Coalition. “It’s another way to profit off the problems that these same actors like the big banks and powerful governments and corporations actually created.” 

The performance of the TFFF depends on market fluctuations, risk and the global economy’s health. The amount of money governments — and Indigenous peoples — receive depends on how well the market does in a particular year. 

Manchineri said that global policymakers should do more to recognize the role that Indigenous peoples play in defending the forests from illegal land grabs that drive deforestation. These communities “will continue to protect” the rainforest, said Manchineri, “with or without a fund. But we need the government to recognize our climate authority and our role as guardians of biodiversity.” 

Prior to COP30, Brazil and nine other tropical countries joined the Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment, or ILTC, a global initiative to recognize Indigenous land tenure and rights to defend against deforestation and provide a potential backstop on the ground to support efforts like the TFFF.

According to Juan Carlos Jintiach, executive secretary of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, this commitment and the accompanying $1.8 billion Forest and Land Tenure Pledge that will support these land recognition efforts are “most welcome.” However, meaningful progress among participating countries entails establishing monitoring instruments that account for and ensure Indigenous peoples see the funds and see their rights recognized. 

“We cannot have climate adaptation, climate mitigation, or climate justice without territorial land rights and the recognition and demarcation of Indigenous territory,” said Zimyl Adler, a senior policy advocate on forests, land and climate finance at Friends of the Earth U.S. 

But evidence of that recognition is scarce. Under the Paris Agreement, signatory states are required to submit climate action plans called Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs. A recent report from global experts that reviewed NDCs from 85 countries found that only 20 of those countries referenced the rights of Indigenous peoples, and that only five mentioned Free, Prior and Informed Consent — an international consultation principle that allows Indigenous peoples to provide, withhold or withdraw their consent at any time for projects that impact their communities or territories. 

“It was a real missed opportunity to strengthen those commitments to land rights and tenure,” said Kate Dooley, a researcher at the University of Melbourne and an author of the Land Gap report. 

As the conference continues this week, the protests have raised questions about the distinction between climate talks and action, and whether this year’s COP will translate into the latter for Indigenous communities who see deforestation and weak land tenure rights as immediate threats to their lives and homes. 

“We don’t eat money. We want our territory free,” said Cacique Gilson, a Tupinambá leader who participated in one protest. “But the business of oil exploration, mineral exploitation and logging continues.”