Governments must empower forest communities to keep fossil fuels underground

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has dubbed COP30 the forest COP. Taking place in Belém, a large urban centre in the Amazon, this choice signals a welcome shift from the capital cities of petro-states to the heart of the world’s most bio-diverse rainforest.

Yet, even as Belém hosts global climate negotiators, the Amazon and its coastline are under renewed pressure. While the spotlight is on protecting trees, new oil concessions are being awarded to keep rigs pumping.

On Nov. 11, dozens of Indigenous protesters forced their way into the COP30 venue demanding an end to industrial development in the Amazon. Indigenous leaders attending COP30 are demanding more say in how forests are managed.

Amid this tension, a new financial initiative has emerged as the potential solution: the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF). Managed by the World Bank as a multilateral trust fund, it would mobilize US$125 billion from public and private investors to reward forested countries for keeping their forests standing — forever.

The pitch is seductive — save forests, earn profits and mitigate climate change all at once. But the proposal raises two questions that demand scrutiny: Will this scheme actually make a major difference for the climate, and how will it impact communities who live in forests?

Read more:
From the Amazon, Indigenous Peoples offer new compass to navigate climate change

Protecting trees

The first question is easier to tackle. Yes, tropical forests store immense amounts of carbon so protecting them is vital. But this contribution is largely contingent on keeping global temperature below 2 C and is dwarfed by the emissions risked if fossil fuels buried beneath those same forests are extracted and burned.

Out of the 74 countries with TFFF-qualifying forests, 68 countries have fossil fuel deposits within them. In total, according to a study by the NGO Leave It In The Ground, there would be some 317 billion tonnes of potential carbon dioxide emissions from recoverable reserves and more than 4.6 trillion tonnes if all deposits were exploited.

Nearly all of it is concentrated in just three countries: China, India and Indonesia. To be truly effective, forest protection must come with a firm commitment: no fossil fuel extraction underneath.

To be equitable, a similar scheme must cover non-TFFF countries, and in particular those with boreal forests covering major fossil fuel deposits, namely in Canada and Russia.

That means prioritizing forests located above fossil fuel reserves and ensuring they remain completely off-limits to exploitation.

For this to happen, countries must make binding commitments, investors must accept lower-risk but longer-term returns and local communities must hold forest tenure rights that cannot be overridden by state ownership of subsoil resources. It’s a tall order — but without such a framework, the “forever forest” concept risks becoming just another limited climate solution.

The term forever forests evokes the advertising slogan of diamond company De Beers — “A Diamond is forever” — and reveals a similar logic: to turn nature into financial assets. A more fitting concept might be what fisheries economist Rashid Sumaila would call the infinity forest — a forest that, like fish stocks, is renewable when soundly managed as a common good.

Many of the world’s forests are not untouched wildernesses but co-created landscapes, shaped through millennia of Indigenous and local stewardship. The Amazon, for instance, is a complex social biome, nurtured through practices such as controlled burning, seed dispersal and farming.

While not all traditional practices are benign, archaeological and ecological evidence shows that many Indigenous and peasant communities have managed forests sustainably — often more effectively than state-led conservation programs and with major implications for biodiversity protection.

In fact, many studies show that biodiversity conservation is more effective in territories governed by Indigenous peoples than in state-managed protected areas.

A financial trap for forest communities

Beyond its likely ineffectiveness for the climate, the TFFF could also have devastating consequences for forest communities. Under Brazil’s current proposal, countries would receive around US$4 for every hectare of protected forest, with 80 cents trickling down to local communities.

But they would be fined US$400 per hectare for any deforestation. This creates a dangerous dynamic: states will crack down on small-scale forest use by local people while giving free rein to industries — such as oil — that generate far higher returns.

In effect, the scheme risks criminalizing traditional forest practices — from small-scale clearing to hunting or gathering — that have sustained these ecosystems for centuries.

As governments seek to avoid penalties, forest communities could face exclusion, forced resettlement or even violence, echoing a long history of displacement caused by “conservation” projects and carbon offset schemes such as REDD+.

Financializing the forest’s future

This brings us to the Indigenous and forest defenders who disrupted COP30 events on Nov. 11. Their protest highlighted the real danger behind the TFFF: the financialization of Indigenous territories.

The scheme does nothing to prevent oil and gas extraction beneath forest lands. What were once commons could become commodities promising investors lucrative returns.

In short, “forever forests” may deliver forever profits — not so much for the people who protect them as for those who exploit their value. This is, bluntly, a new form of green colonialism — a profitable appropriation of the forest’s future.

If the TFFF goes ahead, it must first grant some degree of self-government to Indigenous forest communities — as Colombia recently did — and explicitly prohibit fossil fuel extraction in protected forests.

Investors should pay a premium for forests covering fossil fuel reserves, and both state and community rights must be rebalanced to make no-go zones truly binding. In this way, “forever forests” can become territories of life — not assets of accumulation.

Ultimately, no financial mechanism will save the world’s forests unless it also saves the people who depend on them, and the carbon that must remain buried beneath.

The path to a livable planet runs not through markets or bonds, but through justice: recognition of forest community stewardship and a global commitment to keep fossil fuels in the ground.