Indigenous voices call to decolonize conservation before it repeats history
At COP30 in Belém, Brazil, attention turns to one of its potentially game-changing outcomes: the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF). Launched under Brazilian leadership, the TFFF proposes to mobilize up to US$125 billion to reward countries for protecting and maintaining their tropical forests. But for Indigenous Peoples, whose territories are on the front lines of this conservation battle, the facility presents both opportunity and serious risks.
What the TFFF Offers
The TFFF model is being presented as innovative: rather than relying on grants, it uses a “blended finance” approach. Governments and philanthropies contribute the initial “first-loss” capital (notably, Brazil committed US$1 billion in September 2025). That seed investment is designed to unlock further commercial investment, generating a permanent endowment-style fund from which annual payments of around US$4 billion could flow to eligible tropical-forest countries.
Eligible countries would receive payments tied to the number of hectares of “eligible forest” they maintain each year, with deductions for deforestation or degradation. Crucially for Indigenous Peoples, the plan commits to allocating at least 20% of rewards to Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
For Indigenous communities, this could mean:
- Reliable, long-term finance linked to the actual standing of their territories.
- Recognition of their role as guardians of forests, with direct funding flows.
- A seat at the table in an emerging global architecture of forest finance, if governance arrangements are honored.
What’s at risk?
While the TFFF offers promise, significant red flags call for vigilant scrutiny from Indigenous Peoples’ rights advocates:
- Eligibility and payments flowing through national governments
Although the concept note emphasizes the direct participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, in practice, payments will still flow through national governments, which retain control over how—and whether—funds reach communities on the ground. This structure risks top-down capture and marginalization, particularly in countries where Indigenous governance systems are weak or excluded from formal decision-making.
For genuine justice and equity, Indigenous Peoples Rights International (IPRI) asserts, the facility must guarantee direct and unrestricted access for Indigenous Peoples—not merely a token allocation.
“Treat us as partners—central actors, not passive beneficiaries,” stressed Indigenous Peoples Rights International Executive Director and 2024 Right Livelihood Laureate Joan Carling, underscoring that Indigenous Peoples are not stakeholders to be consulted after decisions are made, but rights-holders who must co-govern the mechanisms that affect their territories.
- Measurement and integrity of forests
Critics warn that current draft rules allow payments even where industrial logging or degradation occurs, if deforestation per se is below threshold.
From IPRI’s view, this undermines Indigenous rights: forest health and ecological integrity are tightly bound to Indigenous communities’ livelihood, culture and biodiversity protection. If degraded forests get the same payout as intact ones, Indigenous-managed pristine forests may be undervalued.
Carling repeatedly emphasises that Indigenous territories often deliver better conservation outcomes, but their value is not recognised. Thus, counting just hectares maintained is insufficient – quality, cultural value, ecosystem integrity must be factored in.
- Land rights, tenure security, and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent
Many Indigenous territories remain legally unrecognised or face fierce tenure contestation. Yet the proposed Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) conditions payments on the maintenance of forest cover. What happens in territories where tenure is insecure, customary governance is undermined, or external actors threaten Indigenous governance altogether? If states receive and control the funds earmarked for “their forests,” Indigenous communities may once again be bypassed—despite being on the front-line stewards of those forests.
IPRI insists that secure land and resource rights, and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), must be pre-requisites and non-negotiable—not treated as add-ons after the fact. Joan Carling’s work repeatedly underscores that without recognised tenure, Indigenous stewardship cannot be fairly rewarded nor defended:
“Without our territories as foundation, everything else — our identity, our rights, our future — stands on uncertain ground,” Carling warned.
By failing to embed tenure recognition and FPIC as foundational conditions, the facility risks legitimising a model in which Indigenous Peoples are credited for conservation outcomes but excluded from decision-making, governance and benefit flows. Carling emphasises that unless Indigenous land rights are upheld, conservation finance becomes yet another mechanism of dispossession, not empowerment.
Simply put, safeguards around tenure and consent are not optional – they are the minimum threshold for any forest-finance mechanism that claims to respect Indigenous rights and deliver justice.
- Green-colonialism risk
The push to mobilize vast private capital – an estimated US $100 billion from corporate and financial investors – raises a fundamental question: who truly benefits from the so-called green transition? Beneath the rhetoric of “nature-based solutions,” financial instruments, return expectations, and debt obligations risk turning forests into carbon assets rather than living territories, and communities into contractors rather than custodians.
Such financial logics often privilege large landholders, agribusiness conglomerates, and extractive interests cleverly rebranded under “restoration” or “conservation” schemes. When conservation becomes a business model instead of a covenant with the Earth, it repeats the very injustices it claims to solve.
IPRI has repeatedly warned that these trends amount to a new wave of “green colonialism” – where Indigenous lands are once again enclosed, monitored, and monetized without consent. “Decolonize conservation,” Carling urges, “because protecting nature must begin with protecting the people who have cared for it all along.”
To decolonize conservation means more than inclusion in meetings or percentages in project budgets; it means reclaiming power, redefining accountability, and restoring Indigenous governance as the core of environmental protection.
If Indigenous Peoples are not central – if they are treated as afterthoughts rather than architects – the TFFF risks perpetuating the same extractive paradigm under a greener name.
Only by centering Indigenous peoples’ self-determination, not investor security, can the world ensure that the green transition does not become another form of dispossession.
Indigenous Peoples’ Non-Negotiables
From the IPRI’s perspective, for the TFFF to truly serve Indigenous Peoples and justice, the following must be non-negotiable:
- Guaranteed participation and governance
Indigenous representatives must sit on the Facility’s board, advisory councils, and at the decision-making table.
- Direct funding channels
At least 20% of payments must flow directly to Indigenous Peoples and communities in forms they control and govern.
- Tenure security and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent embedded
Participation must be contingent on legally recognized Indigenous rights, and every area financed must meet robust FPIC standards.
- Rigorous ecological integrity criteria
Eligibility must reflect not just the area of forest, but quality, biodiversity, cultural value and Indigenous management systems, not simply headquarters-friendly metrics of “hectare maintained”.
- Transparent accountability and safeguards
Clear public reporting, safeguards for defenders, a clause to address land conflict and rights violations, and no penalties if communities are unfairly excluded.
The TFFF has the potential to reshape how the world finances forest conservation. But for Indigenous Peoples, who protect some of the most intact forests and yet face the most significant risks, this instrument must go beyond finance: it must embody justice, sovereignty, and dignity.
If TFFF becomes merely another fund governed by States and investors, Indigenous Peoples may once again find themselves guardians without recognition, stewards without reward, and partners without voice.
At COP30, the global spotlight may shine on grand promises, but Indigenous Peoples demand that the outcome reflects more than numbers. It must reflect their rights and contributions. – iprights.org
