In 2024, the world lost almost 6.7 million hectares (16.5 million acres) of primary tropical forest, the fastest rate ever recorded. The world’s forests are still falling prey to mining, logging and agriculture, but as the climate crisis intensifies, for the first time on record, the leading cause of tropical primary forest loss is fire. Burning forests are further supercharging extreme weather by pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Against this bleak backdrop — and with world leaders’ promise to end and reverse deforestation by 2030 well off track — a planned new $125 billion investment fund to pay tropical countries to halt deforestation offers a lifeline for the world’s forests, and the Indigenous and local communities who live in them. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) was proposed by Brazil at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai in 2023 and aims to keep forests standing by paying nations an initial annual fee of $4 for every hectare of forest they maintain. The money will come from a permanent endowment fund created by a combination of sovereign and philanthropic capital and private investment. Members of Malinggai Uma Tradisional Mentawai, a grassroots, Indigenous-led conservation organization, takes a break during a forest patrol, South Siberut, Indonesia. Image by Ana Norman Bermudez for Mongabay. The fund’s launch is expected to be a major focal point of the COP30 climate summit in November, hosted by Brazil in the Amazonian city of Belém. Investors, tropical forest governments and the TFFF secretariat are currently negotiating…This article was originally published on Mongabay