Forest Trends carries out its work through eight initiatives, which pursue common overarching strategic focal areas laid out in Forest Trends’ Strategic Plan.

Biodiversity Initiative

Forest Trends’ Biodiversity Initiative works directly with companies, governments, banks and conservation organizations to help them improve the outcomes for biodiversity from public and private sector development projects. We offer advisory services to governments on policy development and landscape-level planning for “No Net Loss” – and preferably “Net Positive Impact” – on biodiversity, using the BBOP standard and other best practices. We also offer strategic and technical advice to companies with a biodiversity footprint. We work with companies at both the project level and with company-wide identification and management of risk and opportunity related to biodiversity.

Read in more detail about our work in:

Advising Governments

Forest Trends offers policy and technical advice to governments on the application of the mitigation hierarchy (including biodiversity offsets) and environmental assessments, by:

  • Supporting the development and implementation of government strategies for No Net Loss or Net Gain (NNL/NG) of biodiversity.  These strategies typically cover regulations and policy, technical guidelines, and preparation of public and private sector organizations for their role in the system, whether on the supply or demand side, or as brokers.
  • Conducting policy gap analyses tailored to specific countries, provinces and regions, and providing advice on the advantages and disadvantages of different options in order to embed NNL/NG in the policy framework.
  • Assisting governments (including Ministries of the Environment, Mining, Energy, Finance, Agriculture, Planning and Justice) in the development and use of a roadmap to achieve Net Gain.   The roadmap will show how, over time, to put into place the guidelines, systems, planning, coordination and capacity needed to deliver mitigation and Net Gain in daily land-use planning and decision-making.
  • Producing guidelines on core issues in offset design and implementation.  Such guidelines include: following the mitigation hierarchy, defining limits to what can be offset, exchange rules and metrics to quantify biodiversity losses and gains, site selection, implementation options, monitoring & evaluation, enforcement and adaptive management.
  • Preparing data sets and spatially explicit plans and maps to support NNL/NG planning.
  • Capacity building and training of staff responsible for designing and administering biodiversity mitigation systems, land-use planning and permitting.
  • Helping governments build the financial resources and technical capacity to implement these systems.
Supporting the Private Sector

Forest Trends advises companies in the mining, energy, infrastructure, tourism and forestry sectors on NNL/NG planning, by:

  • Assisting companies as they plan for NNL/NG at three stages 1) early assessment of the feasibility of achieving NNL/NG; 2) design and implementation of NNL/NG during and after the preparation of EIAs; and 3) assessment of existing mitigation measures, including offsets, for conformance with standards.
  • Providing a roadmap, checklist and common definitions and guidance for companies considering or planning no net loss/net gain biodiversity commitments.
  • Developing and administering a ‘Stepwise’ approach for companies to build towards compliance with the mitigation hierarchy and BBOP offset standard.
  • Creating tools for company staff and consultants, such as terms of reference for impact assessments and model biodiversity impact mitigation and offset management plans.
  • Training company staff and especially the consultants they employ to assess impacts and design and deliver mitigation measures (including biodiversity offsets).
Assisting Financial Institutions

Forest Trends works with commercial and development banks and export credit agencies, in:

  • Revising and establishing biodiversity policies and safeguards
  • Reviewing and giving advice on clients’ projects
  • Facilitating dialogue with stakeholders to support national and project-based mitigation
Helping the Conservation Community
Forest Trends undertakes projects for conservation organizations, such as:

  • Writing publications, communication tools and position papers on the mitigation hierarchy, No Net Loss, Net Gain, biodiversity offsets, etc.
  • Chairing and facilitating working groups
  • Preparing and delivering training materials for organizations to use with their members

We welcome the opportunity to work with governments, companies, financial institutions and conservation organizations seeking to adapt successful models for no net loss resource use and green growth. Contact us at pmaguire (at) forest-trends.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Coastal and Marine Initiative

Forest Trends’ Coastal and Marine Initiative aims to protect marine ecosystem services by harnessing markets and private sector investment to complement conventional coastal and marine management methods.

Oceans provide many critical but undervalued ecosystem services that support not only coastal inhabitants but all life on the planet. However, coastal areas continue to be developed, degraded, and over-exploited, undermining the capacity of oceans and watersheds to support critical fisheries, protect people from storms, prevent erosion, provide places for tourism and recreation, and maintain supplies of clean water for people and nature.

The Coastal and Marine Initiative highlights the links between healthy marine and coastal ecosystems, water quality, and human health. We work to create investment opportunities for maintaining the ecosystems that sustain us all. The Coastal and Marine Initiative uses analyses, assessments, pilot projects, and other tools to derive lessons learned from other similar Payments for Ecosystem Services initiatives and to build capacity for marine ecosystem services protection, in order to:

  • Develop a solid understanding of marine ecosystem services and their economic value;
  • Define the best practices for the conservation of those services;
  • Provide information about ecosystem services in order to raise awareness and generate political will needed to effectively and efficiently protect them; and
  • Build a community of practice for marine payments of ecosystem services (PES) and other innovative financing mechanisms.

For a brief overview of our Coastal and Marine Initiative (formerly MARES, Marine Ecosystem Services program), click here.

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Communities Initiative

Our Mission

Supporting indigenous and forest communities to thrive in their homelands is one of the most effective safe­guards against deforestation. These communities are our first line of defense in saving forests and fighting climate change since forests remove a quarter of the world’s carbon. But these defend­ers face unrelenting pressures to clear forests for agriculture, logging, mining, and illegal activities – and often experience violence or political repression when they resist. They need effective partnerships to keep their forests standing and secure their rights. They also need support in creating sustainable economic pathways.

We work in Latin America, where 50% of the world’s tropical forests remain. In fact, one-quarter of these forests are inhabited and guarded by indigenous and other local communities. We partner with these stewards to promote innovations in territorial governance as a participatory framework to secure their rights, conserve their forests, and strengthen their cultures and livelihoods.

We focus on local strategies with global impact, creating direct, measurable benefits for forest communities. Doing so contributes to global climate goals that benefit all of us.

Key Results

Our Approach

Our team uses a proven “territorial governance” approach that considers advocacy, economic self-determination, and cultural integrity as three essential pillars:

Advocacy
Communities need training and resources to advocate for their rights and economic sovereignty, and to fully engage with governments, companies, and donors. Our Capacity Building Program on Indigenous Territorial Governance brings learning opportunities to communities and trains new leaders, strengthening their ability to protect biodiversity and the well-being of generations to come.
Economic Self-determination
Many traditional communities are striving to strike a balance between market engagement and their relationship with their land, traditions, and well-being. Communities must be able to participate in markets on their own terms, in building viable and equitable local economies that sustain biodiversity and cultural values. We catalyze sustainable forest enterprises around Brazil nut, cacao, coffee, and other non-timber forest products, and establish strong market relationships that protect the forest and nurture local communities. With Canopy Bridge we launched the Cumari Rainforest-to-Table project, harnessing the Amazon’s vast cornucopia of healthy ingredients and traditional cuisines to connect local communities with demand for these products driven by Latin America’s world-class culinary scene. Working with indigenous women artisans, we increased incomes by 10%, while building entrepreneurial skills and facilitating market connections.
Cultural Integrity
Indigenous communities have experienced rapid cultural change. There is a need for spaces to reaffirm their ethnic identities, build awareness of fundamental rights, and help young indigenous people bridge the cultural divide for a more equitable and sustainable world. We developed the Cultural Mediators program, which trains teachers and develops educational materials for young indigenous students about territorial governance, natural resource management, climate change, and cultural traditions. We also support “living pharmacies,” which are traditional medicinal centers and production systems that rely on traditional knowledge.

 

 

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Ecosystem Marketplace

Ecosystem Marketplace is a leading source of knowledge on market-based approaches to sustainable environmental financing around the world.

Ecosystem Marketplace covers developments in environmental markets through timely news and feature articles, as well as monthly newsletters. We also regularly publish original research reports on markets for carbon offsets, biodiversity offsets and compensation, watershed investments, and broader private investment in conservation. In addition to making our work freely and publicly available online, we share our knowledge through webinars, speaking engagements, consultations, and partnerships with other organizations.

Our research to date has shown that market-based approaches can be sustainable, diverse and adaptable, and scalable to a level that has significant conservation outcomes.

We seek to catalyze growth, new applications, and broader adoption of market-based approaches by:

  • Creating accessible, trustworthy knowledge on market scope, buyers and demand, sellers and supply, investable projects, enabling policies and regulations, and other market-relevant information; and
  • Delivering this knowledge to market actors (e.g., investors, project developers, brokers, retailers, standards, registries), policy-makers, and regulators.

With Ecosystem Marketplace’s high-quality market intelligence, project developers can better manage and sell ecosystem services; buyers can better understand the markets; policy makers can learn how to create more enabling environments for markets; and market analysts can better understand real-world challenges and detect market trends.

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Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance Initiative

The Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance (FPTF) initiative aims to promote policies which harness the power of market incentives for the legal and sustainable trade in timber and other commodities harvested from forest landscapes.

FPTF combines research, mentorship, and convening “communities of practice” to address issues at the intersection of natural resource governance, markets and trade, law enforcement, resource rights, and green growth. Since its creation in the early 2000s, FPTF has gained the trust of high-level government decision-makers in key timber-producer and -consumer countries by producing timely data analysis with key insights on relevance for markets, livelihoods, and policy impact. Much of the research is developed in close collaboration with local civil society organizations, researchers, and other stakeholders.

Forest Governance and Legality

REDDX Initiative

Forest Trends created its REDDX initiative to provide information that helps governments and other REDD+ stakeholders gain a better understanding of the financial flows associated with REDD+ and to assess this financing’s gaps and needs against national REDD+ strategies.

Up until 2015, over US$7.3 billion had been pledged to support REDD+ “readiness” through capacity building on the ground in tropical forest countries. Despite such high levels of multilateral and bilateral financial commitments, information remains limited on how much of this money is actually flowing to countries at the national level, which types of REDD+ activities are being supported, and which organizations are managing and implementing these activities.

From 2009 to 2014, the REDDX Initiative tracked REDD+ finance in 13 countries to determine:

  • Commitments and disbursements of REDD+ finance;
  • Timelines between when funds are committed and disbursed;
  • The types of organizations receiving and implementing the REDD+ activities (e.g., government, NGOs, large international consulting firms and consultants, or community organizations);
  • Types of activities supported by the current financial commitments, such as improved forest and land management, carbon offsets, stakeholder engagement etc.
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Public-Private Finance Initiative

Forest Trends’ Public-Private Finance Initiative works with public and private sector partners to create innovative mechanisms that increase financial flows to forest conservation and low-deforestation agriculture in tropical forest countries.

Tropical forests store carbon, protect watersheds, and provide havens for biodiversity, but they are under pressure from competing land uses, such as agriculture. It is possible to transform agriculture to more sustainable models, but the costs cannot all be met by the public sector. The Public-Private Finance Initiative works to address this issue in three ways:

  • Innovative Finance
    We see the potential to use public sector money to reduce risks for the private sector in investing in forest conservation and farming models that conserve and restore forests and degraded lands. For example, in Brazil, we are working with the World Bank to design “forest bonds.” These are bonds, issued to the mainstream debt markets, where the proceeds are allocated towards forest protection in the Brazilian Amazon. This might mean providing low-cost loans to farmers to help them preserve a certain percentage of their land as forest and, in doing so, help them comply with the Brazilian Forest Code.
  • Integrated Finance
    We see a great opportunity to link forest conservation to sustainable commodity markets and supply chains via mechanisms such as certification and income from sale of REDD+ credits. For example, in Peru and Brazil, we are working with local entrepreneurs, project developers, and international asset managers to explore ways of including small farmers in coffee and cocoa supply chains. Methods to do so include linkages with European specialty commodity markets, guarantees from development finance institutions, and income from project and jurisdictional REDD+ credits.
  • Efficient Finance
    It is often cheaper for small farmers to expand into nearby forest rather than increase the productivity of the land they already own. In addition, smallholders often find it difficult to access low-cost loans for their work from state banks. We are helping farmers to more easily access international climate finance that would allow them to improve the productivity of their farming operations. For example, we are working in the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil with the Forests, Farms, and Finance Initiative to develop a zero-deforestation certification scheme and accompanying high-level finance mechanisms that will reward farmers for conserving forests and increasing yields on existing land.
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Supply Change

Forest Trends’ Supply Change Initiative runs the world’s largest and most comprehensive database on company commitments to reducing deforestation related to agricultural commodities.

Commercial agriculture drives as much as two-thirds of tropical deforestation globally, and most of the forest clearance and impacts stems from the production of the “big four” commodities: palm, soy, timber & pulp, and cattle. A growing number of businesses are determined to change course and are making commitments to reducing deforestation in supply chains. However, public information on how these commitments translate into action on the ground is scarce. Forest Trends’ Supply Change initiative fills this gap by closely tracking companies’ progress towards these commitments.

Supply Change’s collaborators are CDP and WWF. WWF brings to the table decades of support to companies making the transition to deforestation-free commodities, and CDP adds an ever-strengthening track record of motivating companies to disclose their impacts on the environment and take action to reduce them. Supply Change combines these assets with Forest Trends’ long-standing technical expertise in tracking and analyzing environmental markets to make for a robust analysis of these corporate commitments.

As of mid-2017, Supply Change is tracking more than 700 companies that have business practices linked to the “big four” commodities; they produce, process, trade, manufacture, or retail products linked to the “big four” commodities. In addition to tracking these companies’ public commitments to reducing deforestation in their supply chains, Supply Change also researches policies and practices that support their commitments and strengthen the sustainability of their supply chains. These include policies related to commodity certification, traceability, transparency, supporting smallholders, protecting biodiversity and wildlife, improving water management, and increasing yields per hectare, among others. See here for the complete list.

Supply Change is an evolving initiative, uniquely designed for partnership and collaboration to ensure it meets the ever-developing needs and interests of its stakeholder network of businesses, non-profits, governments, financial institutions, academic researchers, and the media.

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Water Initiative

Forest Trends’ Water Initiative designs, implements, and brings to scale effective investments in ecosystems that support clean, safe water for people and nature.

From Sao Paulo to San Francisco, people around the world are facing a severe water crisis. Traditional (“gray”) infrastructure solutions alone will not suffice to meet this challenge – they tend to be costly, inflexible, and vulnerable to climate change and other shocks, and can also contribute to environmental degradation. A fundamentally new approach is needed that combines “gray” solutions with “green” systems such as forests, grasslands, and wetlands, which protect our access to clean water.

Green+gray approaches can reduce costs of regulating and filtering water, require less energy while reducing GHG emissions, manage a range of risks to water systems, increase resilience to climate change, and provide a multitude of environmental and social co-benefits.

To get green infrastructure strategies to scale, Forest Trends’ Water Initiative works with partners to:

  • Scale up Natural Infrastructure for Water Security
    Natural Infrastructure for Water Security in PeruNatural infrastructure is poised for scale in Peru as Peruvian leaders have increasingly recognized its critical role. New national policy advances have dedicated a portion of water user fees to address water security and climate risks. An estimated US$30 million in water tariffs have already been allocated to payments for ecosystem services projects. An additional US$86 million allocated for climate change adaptation and disaster risk management could also help fund natural infrastructure investments. To consolidate these important policy developments, it is essential that the committed funds result in demonstrated improvements in community, city, and local business resilience to water and climate risk. The Natural Infrastructure for Water Security Project will demonstrate how well-managed natural infrastructure projects in Peru deliver water security benefits and are sustainable, cost-effective, and scalable.
  • Build the Evidence Case for Green Infrastructure
    From Amazonian forests to pre-Incan infiltration canals to water-rich grasslands, green infrastructure delivers a range of benefits which need to be better quantified and communicated. Forest Trends is working with a diverse group of experts to build and communicate a robust evidence base for the hydrological and economic benefits of green infrastructure. To do so, we are championing a performance-based approach that applies cutting-edge design principles and innovative science such as remote-sensing technology and regional water monitoring network to measure the benefits of green infrastructure.
  • Strengthen Capacity of Leaders and Key Institutions
    Building capacity in designing, financing, and implementing green infrastructure will address a major hurdle in scaling up green infrastructure – the number of organizations and experts within the water sector with the skills needed to implement projects.
    Key skills and experience are currently concentrated in several institutions and organizations, and Forest Trends is working with partners, such as the Green Infrastructure Working Group of the Association of Latin American Water Utility Regulators (ADERASA), to build regional capacity in the design and implementation of green infrastructure projects through the first-ever comprehensive green infrastructure course for the water sector.
  • Secure Next Generation Finance
    Combining the power of private finance with public investments, the new models for financing can unblock bottlenecks to scaling green infrastructure. With partners in engineering, water utilities, and finance we are developing and testing new public-private co-financing for water and building capacity for developing pipelines of investable projects.
  • Improve Decision Tools for Green Infrastructure
    To be effective, green infrastructure has to be brought to scale.
    Forest Trends is working with local leaders and top technical experts to develop a new generation of decision tools for incorporating green infrastructure as a key component of sustainable water management. Innovations in master planning, scenario development, and assessing green infrastructure’s multiple benefits will help bring these solutions to scale. For example, in Lima, Peru, which is allocating $135 million from its water tariff to invest in green infrastructure and climate change adaptation, a Green Infrastructure Master Plan will serve as a first model for integrating green and gray infrastructure planning and water resources governance processes that is client-driven, results-oriented, cross disciplinary, and communicates the value of green infrastructure in clear and actionable terms.

Learn more about how we are partnering with organizations and governments in many countries around the world (for example, Peru, China etc.) to demonstrate these benefits and develop innovative investment models that allow green infrastructure to play an effective role in addressing the global water crisis.

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