Post by COP30 Brazil

Forests are rapidly moving to the center of global political and economic discussions. This week at #UNFF21 in New York, we convened governments, Indigenous leaders, international organizations, investors, and partners to discuss the emerging COP30 Presidency Roadmap to Halt and Reverse Deforestation and Forest Degradation by 2030 — in line with paragraphs 33 and 34 of the First Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement. A strong message emerged throughout the sessions: forests cannot be treated solely as an environmental agenda. They are increasingly central to economic resilience, livelihoods, food and water security, biodiversity protection, and long-term prosperity. During the dialogues, Marco Tulio Scarpelli Cabral, coordinator of the COP30 Presidency Roadmap, stressed that the debate is no longer whether the world will halt deforestation by 2030, but how we will get there. The Roadmap highlights that annual forest loss already generates an estimated US$81 billion in economic damages linked to climate impacts, with cascading effects across agriculture, infrastructure, water systems, and energy markets. As Martin Krause, Director of UNEP’s Climate Change Division, noted, this is “a cost that finance ministers and infrastructure investors are already paying — often without even realizing it.” The discussions reinforced the importance of: - sustainable land-use practices at landscape scale; - direct financing for Indigenous Peoples and local communities; - stronger transparency and due diligence frameworks; - repurposing harmful subsidies; - mobilizing catalytic and long-term capital, including through initiatives such as the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF); - enhanced cooperation between producer and consumer countries to strengthen green trade. The dialogues were co-led by UN Climate Change, UNDP, FAO, UN Environment Programme, N4C, ICPH and partners including Climate Policy Initiative/PUC-Rio, Global Optimism, WWF, Forest Stewardship Council and the Instituto Igarapé, bringing together perspectives from multiple forest regions — Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, Germany, Guatemala, Indonesia, the Philippines, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom — to exchange experiences, challenges, and practical solutions around forest governance, finance, restoration, sustainable land use, and implementation at scale. As discussions advance from COP30 toward COP31, the Forest Roadmap is evolving not only as a document, but as a platform for coordination, implementation, and convergence across existing forest initiatives and stakeholders. Its success will depend on each country identifying biome-specific drivers, opportunities, and pathways capable of delivering meaningful results on the ground. #Forests #COP30 #EconomicResilience #ClimateAction #Deforestation #Biodiversity #SustainableLandUse #IndigenousPeoples #Restoration