The recently launched Peoples Forests Partnership (the Partnership), aims to secure commitments to mobilize $20 billion per year by 2030 to Indigenous Peoples, traditional owners, and local communities (IPLCs) for community-based tropical forest conservation and restoration projects in the Global South. Facilitating members of the Partnership include Forest Trends, RECOFTC, Wildlife Works Carbon, Everland, and Green Collar. This Partnership could help reduce 2 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from deforestation each year, protect 500 million hectares of threatened tropical forest, and support livelihoods and bioeconomy development for over 50 million people in forest communities.
The Partnership was launched last year during the COP 26 conference in Glasgow, following an announcement of funding of $1.7B for IPLCs pledged by Norway, UK, US, Germany, and the Netherlands. The funding, to be provided through 2025, will support the capacity of IPLCs to govern themselves collectively, assist with mapping and registration work, back national land reform, and help resolve conflict over territories.
The Partnership will support performance-based payments, such as carbon credits, and other climate funding mechanisms, including a financing facility specifically focused on strengthening territorial governance to be managed by Forest Trends. The Partnership is organized around two governing principles (i) forest communities are essential conservation partners; and (ii) community-based, values-driven climate and conservation finance projects have the potential to create a future with forests that aligns with forest community rights to their territories, economic self-determination, and cultural traditions.
Facilitating members represent a collective portfolio that includes:
- over 250,000 Indigenous and other forest community members receiving direct market finance in recognition for protecting forests;
- over 2 million hectares of tropical forests with active climate finance projects;
- financing already in place for a portfolio of community-based forest conservation projects that will deploy $2 billion in private investment and stop 200 million tonnes of deforestation emissions in the next ten years; and
- community-based forest conservation projects in countries across South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific.
The Partnership is currently seeking expressions of interest from IPLCs, corporates, NGOs, climate financiers, forest governments, donors, members of the public interesting in becoming members and is inviting interested stakeholders to participate in public consultations on membership criteria and operating principles.
For further information or to discuss the contents of this bulletin, please contact Lisa DeMarco at lisa@resilientllp.com.
