A revolutionary new standard for climate justice is being set at the Brazil climate summit. A new $5.5 billion fund, the “Tropical Forests Forever Facility,” includes a mandatory rule that 20 percent of all its proceeds must go directly to Indigenous peoples.
This provision is a cornerstone of the proposal by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. It is a powerful, formal recognition that Indigenous communities, who have managed and preserved these lands for millennia, are the most effective and essential partners in the fight against deforestation.
A large presence of tribal leaders from Brazil and surrounding countries is expected at the talks, moving them from the sidelines of past summits to the center of the financial strategy. This allocation is a direct payment for their stewardship.
The fund itself is a novel mechanism to pay 74 developing countries to keep their trees standing. Financed by interest-bearing loans from wealthy nations and investors, it aims to make conservation more profitable than destruction. Norway has already pledged $3 billion.
This focus on an Indigenous-led, finance-driven solution offers a hopeful path forward, even as the summit is marked by the absence of the world’s top polluters and grim warnings from the UN chief about “deadly negligence.”
