Episode description

A new forest finance fund known as the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) will work like an investment portfolio (unlike the familiar – and often ineffective – forest conservation loan or grant funds), and if enacted as intended, it will reward 70 tropical nations billions in annual funding for keeping their forests standing.

Co-host Mike DiGirolamo speaks with three people who have analyzed the fund: Mongabay freelance reporter Justin Catanoso, Charlotte Streck – co-founder of Climate Focus – and Frédéric Hache, a lecturer in sustainable finance at the Paris Institute of Political Studies. They tackle the critical questions regarding what the proposed fund could – and would not – do.

“I think that TFFF is an initiative that has great potential because it is put forward and supported by tropical rainforest countries. It is not [a] mechanism that has been defined by donors or by any experts. It is now pushed and promoted by the countries that harbor all this tropical forest,” says Streck.

For additional background, find Catanoso’s report on the TFFF for Mongabay here.

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Image caption: Cecropia tree in Peru. Image by Rhett Butler for Mongabay.

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Time stamps

(00:00) A brief primer of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF)

(03:10) Details from Justin Catanoso

(10:24) Digging deeper with Charlotte Streck

(25:17) Critiques and concerns from Frederic Hache

(35:50) Credits