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:

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.

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.

Our Approach

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

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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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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

• Commodity Chain AnalysisCommodity Chain Analysis
  FPTF produces timely analysis of timber and agricultural commodity market dynamics and trade flows, utilizing data from both primary (e.g., field research, customs agencies) and secondary sources, and focusing on trade flows that are at high risk of illegality. Engaging national stakeholders has proven essential in obtaining buy-in to our research results that can ultimately influence policy.  Through this work, FPTF has been credited with helping open a dialogue with the Government of China on illegal logging, influencing the development of both FLEGT and REDD+ in Vietnam and Laos, and assisting governments, NGOs, and the private sector to understand risks in global timber supply chains.
• Combating Illegal Logging and DeforestationCombatting Illegal logging and Deforestation
  FPTF has demonstrated the degree to which timber and agricultural commodities on global markets are sourced from illegally deforested land, a finding that now underpins key multilateral and bilateral strategies for addressing deforestation. The vast majority of corporate commitments to reducing deforestation have centered around a few commodities in a handful of countries – Indonesia and Brazil chief among them. While targeting these countries is critical, doing so misses regions such as the Mekong; less-traded commodities such as rubber, sugar, and rice; In Southeast Asia’s Mekong region, we have used this work to bridge policy processes focused on legality and climate change mitigation, advocating for a combination of sound regulation and good governance as an essential foundation to reforms in the natural resource sectors.

  Read our reports on illegal deforestation:
  Consumer Goods and Deforestation (2014)
  Indonesia’s timber supply gap (2015)
  Ending Global Deforestation: Policy Options for Consumer Countries (2013)
  Potential Legality Issues from Forest Conversion Timber (2013)
  Identifying Illegality in Timber from Forest Conversion: A Review of Legality Definitions (2013)
  Treatment of Conversion Timber in Consumer-Country Measures (2013)
  Tackling Deforestation and Trade in Forest-Risk Commodities: Consumer country measures and the “legality approach” (2019)
  Getting the “Bads” Out of Goods: Evolution from voluntary to regulated approaches in reducing the undesirable impacts of global trade (2018)
  Economic impacts of illegal agro-conversion in tropical forested countries (2018)
• Transparency and Anti-Corruption MeasuresTransparency and Anti-Corruption Measures
  Forthcoming.
• Forest, Conflict, and PeacebuildingForest, Conflict, and Peacebuilding
  Improved programs for forest governance can strengthen peace and security as much as they can mitigate climate change, improve environmental management, and support local communities. But to be effective, these programs must address challenges unique to countries attempting to recover from conflict. We aim to build the capacity of civil society, ethnic organizations, and government actors to ensure that peace processes create real and lasting sustainable development, while respecting local rights and reducing the likelihood of future conflict. Forest Trends has prepared a set of briefings to examine ways that countries can improve the governance of their forests during periods of transition, e.g., following the cessation of conflict and/or military dictatorship. The six briefings deal with lessons learned related to:

  • Decentralization of political, administrative, and economic power to regional authorities, especially under federalist systems, with a particular focus on the impact on natural resource management;
  • Revenue sharing systems to address inequity in the distribution of costs and benefits from the exploitation of natural resources;
  • Integrity mechanisms that increase the ability to hold authorities accountable; one of the briefings deals specifically with anti-corruption commissions;
  • Moratoria on logging and the allocation of new concessions that can be used to push forward forest-sector reforms during periods of transition; and
  • Climate change initiatives that can both help reduce the likelihood of conflict and reinforce the peace-building process.

  The briefings also provide a case study of decentralization in Indonesia, a resource-dependent country that has emerged from decades-long military dictatorship and that is populated by ethnic minorities who lay claim—albeit often unrecognized by government—to many of the resource-rich areas. The case study compares post-transition decentralization enjoyed by local district governments to the “Special Autonomy” provisions for Aceh Province. Aceh’s special autonomy, which increased local control over natural resources and resource revenues, was a condition of the 2005 Peace Agreement that ended Aceh’s secessionist civil war.

  Briefings

  • Decentralization and the Governance of Natural Resources: The Necessity of Checks & Balances [DRAFT]
  • Federalism and Forest Management [DRAFT]
  • Anti-Corruption Commissions as a Tool for Good Governance [DRAFT]
  • Improving Forest Management Practices in Myanmar [DRAFT]
  • Experience in Revenue Sharing from High Value Resources [DRAFT]
  • “Quasi-Federalism” in Indonesia [DRAFT]
  • Mention of Natural Resources In Ceasefire & Peace Agreements [DRAFT]
  • REDD+ & Post-Conflict: A briefing for the Oslo REDD-Exchange [DRAFT]
• Timber Regulation Enforcement Exchange (TREE)Timber Regulation Enforcement Exchange (TREE)
  Since 2012, Forest Trends has been working with Government officials to further understanding of complex high-risk supply chains for wood products and support coordinated implementation of the EU Timber Regulation, US Lacey Act, Australian Illegal Logging Prohibition Act and, most recently, the Canadian Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act (WAPPRIITA). The process is known as the Timber Regulation Enforcement Exchange (TREE), an ongoing series of networking and information-sharing meetings which brings the growing group of officials together every six months. The TREE process aims to support robust and consistent enforcement of demand-side timber regulations by providing a forum for officials to gain detailed insight into high- and low-risk timber flows entering their countries, discuss practical enforcement issues with each other and relevant experts from the forest sector and other relevant product/environmental sectors, establish emergent norms for Due Diligence/care in relation to different forest products, and build relationships with producer country governments, industry representatives, and other stakeholders involved in combating illegal logging and promoting global markets for legal timber.
  

  Newsletters

  •   Newsletter – Spring 2016   [English]   [Español]  [Français]  [中文]
  •   Newsletter – Fall 2016   [English]  [Français]  [中文]

  Events:

  Below is a list of all previous meetings organized by Forest Trends and/or Chatham House as part of the TREE process. Agendas, slides, and meeting notes can be found at the links provided.

  • January 17, 2013 – Preparing for EUTR Implementation: Workshop One
    
  • February 20 2013 – Preparing for EUTR Implementation: Workshop Two
    
  • May 20-25 2013 – Learning from the Implementation of the US Lacey Act
    Forest Trends supported five EUTR Competent Authorities to visit Washington D.C. for closed, informal meetings and training sessions with US Lacey enforcement agencies.
  • October 22, 2013 – EUTR and the Imported Furniture Sector
    
  • December 12, 2013 – EUTR and CITES
    
  • February 17-21, 2014 –Study Tour for US Lacey, EUTR, and Australian ILPA officials
    Enforcement officials visited a port in Rotterdam, had meetings at the Thunen Institute of Forest Genetics and Wood Research in Hamburg, and participated in an EC FLEGT meeting in Brussels.
  • March 19-20, 2014 – The Pulp and Paper Sector [also see this link]
  • July 14, 2014 – EUTR and Inter-State Communications
    
  • October 28-30 – Substantiated Concerns, Producer Country Cooperation, and Cameroon Supply Chains [also see this link]
    
  • April 14-16, 2015 – Chinese Supply Chains, Risk, and Legal Compliance
    
  • September 15-18, 2015 – Production and Trade in Eastern Europe; Furniture Sector; Updates from Brazil and Australia
    
  • April 5-8, 2016 – Regional focus on timber supply chains from: Eastern Europe & the Balkans; Cameroon; Peru
    
  • October 24-27, 2016 – Paris, France
  • April 5-7, 2017 – Rome, Italy
  • October 23-25, 2017 – Valencia, Spain

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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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 FinanceInnovative 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 FinanceIntegrated 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 FinanceEfficient 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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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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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 SecurityScale up Natural Infrastructure for Water Security
  Natural Infrastructure for Water Security in Peru

  Natural 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 InfrastructureBuild 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 InstitutionsStrengthen 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 FinanceSecure 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 InfrastructureImprove 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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