On 6 November 2025, Brazil’s President Lula presented the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) to world leaders who had come to the Amazon city of Belém for the 30th annual UN climate conference (COP30). The TFFF will be hosted by the World Bank. Almost 20 years earlier, former World Bank employees had come up with the idea of speculating on financial markets as a way of trying to raise billions of dollars for forest protection. (1) The TFFF launched in Belém, celebrated by proponents as the ‘big innovation’ to finance forest protection, has its origins in ’this idea from nearly 20 years ago. 

World Bank proposal to reduce industrialized country payments for tropical forest protection

The former World Bank employees who came up with the idea highlighted what they saw as a big advantage in their proposal: the money could be raised “without encumbering the finances of the countries that sponsor it”. In other words, industrialized countries could reduce their payments for protecting forests in the Global South. As this article explains further below, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility launched in Belém will work in the same way: the money which the TFFF hopes to raise would come mainly from Southern countries themselves, not industrialized countries or wealthy investors. The Third World Network has pointed out this “paradox in [the TFFF’s] financing: the returns used to reward tropical forest conservation are largely generated from the developing countries themselves, via their debt servicing and payments to international investors”. (2) 

TFFF is all about money – so where does the money come from?

Although the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) receives most public attention, it fully depends on another, legally separate entity, which is at the heart of the whole TFFF idea: the Tropical Forest Investment Fund (TFIF). The TFFF would distribute (a small) part of the profits to countries with tropical forests that the TFIF hopes to generate by investing on financial markets. All the important decisions on how to generate the billions of US-dollars that the TFFF would distribute will be taken at the TFIF – where those who are providing the money, not the ones who protect the forest, will dominate the decision-making. TFIF thus replicates the colonialist decision-making structures of the global financial system. 

The TFFF is based on the idea that money can stop deforestation. This focus on money as a way to protect forests is based on the (simplistic) assumption adopted by the TFFF that tropical forests are destroyed because there is no financial value in protecting them. This is what TFFF promises to change, by paying countries with tropical forests around US 4 dollars per hectare as an incentive to prevent deforestation. The role of the TFIF is to raise the money that TFFF is promising to governments in the Global South if they are reducing deforestation. 

TFIF seeks to raise the money by operating like a bank: it hopes to borrow money and then invest it at a profit. So, to start, TFIF needs to raise the money. They have calculated that in total, the TFIF will need US125 dollars billion to be able to pay US 4 dollars per hectare to the countries that qualify for payments for protecting tropical forests. (3) US25 billion dollars are expected to come from public sources, mainly contributions from governments in the Global North, and philanthropists like the Minderoo Foundation, which is backed by Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest. (4) This public money can be grants, or more likely, it will be long-term loans which means that Northern governments will also be profiting from their contributions and get their money back after some decades. The TFIF will need to secure at least a significant part of this public money in order to start raising the US100 billion dollars in private capital. Why? Because the public money will be used as a risk guarantee for the private capital. Without the public money as risk buffer, the cost of borrowing US100 billion dollars of private capital would be much higher. 

Once the TFIF has secured the expected total of US125 billion dollars (or a lower amount, if TFIF will not be able to secure the full 125 billion US-dollars), the TFIF managers will become ‘investors’ on the global financial market themselves, lending the US125 billion dollars of borrowed money to governments and companies in need of money. The assumption of the TFFF is that the TFIF managers will make more profit from their investments than TFIF has to pay in fees to its own ‘investors’ that provided the US125 billion dollars. If this gamble works, there would be money left over to pass to the TFFF for distribution to countries with tropical forests. But this is a very big IF! Several economists think that after all the bills, including salaries, for operating the TFIF are paid and the ‘investors’ have received the fees for lending their money to TFIF, there may be very little, if any, money left to pay out to countries with tropical forests. (5)

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Arguments to reject the TFFF

There are many reasons to reject the TFFF. The text below highlights two of them: the TFFF relies on a capitalist, therefore fundamentally unjust global financial system that has been crippling countries in the Global South with unsustainable debt and the proposal will lead to more, not less deforestation. More arguments are discussed in the materials listed at the end of this article. 

1 - TFFF relies on a capitalist, therefore fundamentally unjust global financial system that has been crippling countries in the Global South with unsustainable debt

Two aspects of this fundamentally unjust global financial system are particularly relevant. The first one is that for country governments and companies in the Global South, it is far more expensive to borrow in US-dollars than for governments and companies in the Global North. For governments and companies in the Global South, interest rates established in their countries are higher and currency exchange rate fluctuations are bigger. This is one reason why TFIF will be registered in the Global North, probably in the USA: It will have to pay much less for borrowing the US125 billion dollars if registered in the US than it would if it was registered in a country in the Global South (borrowing the same amount in Brazilian Real or Argentinian Pesos instead of US-dollars would also be much more expensive). It will also be able to make more profit by lending the borrowed US125 billion dollars to governments and companies in the Global South because they have to pay high interest rates for borrowing in US-dollars (in addition to facing high currency exchange rate risks). This difference in the cost of borrowing for governments and companies in the Global North and the Global South that is at the heart of the global financial system, is what the TFIF business model is built on. It has to exploit this imperialist injustice of the financial system in order to generate the profit it is hoping to make. 

The second injustice that TFIF depends on to raise money, is the crippling debt burden of countries across the Global South. Many factors are behind this debt crisis across the Global South. They include the long shadow of debt imposed on newly-independent countries by their former colonizers, imperial trade regimes that reduce countries in the Global South to exporters of raw materials at low prices, World Bank structural adjustment and neoliberal ‘development’ policies as well as the global financial system that grants privilege to currencies of the Global North, as noted above. (6) For countries in the Global South, this debt burden means being trapped in a vicious cycle where they keep on having to borrow more money at unfavorable conditions just to pay back the interest on their debt, all the while the debt itself keeps growing. Cuts to public services or their privatization are among the impacts for the population. 

Cancellation of this illegitimate debt is a long-standing demand from the Global South. It would free up much more than the US4 dollars per hectare of forest that the TFFF might be paying to countries with tropical forests. But instead of supporting debt cancellation, the TFFF model is dependent on maintaining and further deepening this debt burden! This is why, at the end of the day, the money that TFFF hopes to distribute for tropical forest conservation largely comes from the countries in the Global South themselves, via their debt servicing and payments to international investors, in this case including the TFIF . Even worse, only a small portion of the profit that the TFIF seeks to extract from the Global South will be passed on to the TFFF; the large part of the hoped-for profits will be paid to run the TFIF and pay the investors – in their majority from the Global North – who are lending the US125 billion dollars to the TFIF. As the CornerHouse has pointed out: “On the whole, the [TFFF] scheme is designed to transfer wealth from South to North”. (7) 

2 – More, not less, forest destruction

For several reasons, TFIF / TFFF will likely lead to more, not less, forest destruction.
First, like so many previous international forest policy initiatives that promised to ‘save tropical forests’, the TFFF lacks a credible plan to tackle the underlying drivers and structural causes of deforestation. It does not propose effective measures to halt the expansion of mega-infrastructure projects such as hydropower dams that flood large areas of forest or Brazil’s BR-319 highway that cuts through the Amazon. (8) TFFF also has no concrete proposals for how to stop the devastation of forests for mining, industrial logging or expansion of monoculture plantations, be they soy, oil palm or trees; it does not come with a plan to stop forest destruction for oil exploration or coal mining, either. 

Second, TFFF’s claim that annual payments of US4 dollar per hectare are “large enough to compete with the existing political economy issues driving forest loss” is unfounded. It provides no evidence whatsoever for this ludicrous claim, which is, at best, an assumption based on wishful thinking, and at worst, a cynical joke. Soy production, palm oil production, and other sectors that drive forest destruction – such as oil, mining and infrastructure – enjoy massive political and financial support and incentives from their respective governments. Producers of soybeans in Brazil, for example, could make more than US 360 dollars per hectare in profit in the 2024/2025 harvest. (9) That is why many extractive industries continue to break production records year after year. 

Third, TFIF is likely to incentivize deforestation to achieve its profit projections. The financial markets which TFIF will be investing in only flourish well in an expanding capitalist economy. Bond markets – the part of financial markets that TFIF will primarily invest in – were invented to raise the money needed to set up profitable large and state-backed industrial projects. That is what bonds are for. (10) They provide money for large energy projects, for example, or for large-scale pulp and paper production, mining and agribusiness. Today, many of these operations - hydropower dams, nickel mining for batteries, etc. – are labelled as ‘clean’ or ‘green’, even though they are, by definition, activities that cause large-scale destruction. Without providing money for this cycle of destruction, the TFIF cannot generate the profits it hopes to pass on to the TFFF for ‘forest conservation’ payouts. The business model of the TFIF thus relies on investments in the very kinds of industrial activities a fund aiming to halt deforestation would have to stop, not invest in.

3 - Same logic as REDD 

REDD will continue to damage forest peoples, operating alongside TFFF. Supporters of the TFFF have made it very clear that the same forest for which a government receives US4 dollar per hectare from the TFFF, a private carbon company can run a REDD project, or the government can sell carbon credits through a jurisdictional REDD programme. TFFF is expected to be money on top of REDD, not instead of carbon money, arguing that the money for forest conservation through REDD would be insufficient. (11)

But the TFFF intends to operate on the same logic as REDD: turning the climate crisis into business opportunities for financial capital while transferring its costs, risks, and impacts onto peoples. Like REDD, the TFFF financialises forests faster, meaning that financial capital, not forest peoples, have growing control over what can and cannot be done in a forest.  

Growing opposition to wealth extraction machine TFFF

Many manifestos and petitions opposing the TFFF object to its proposal to raise money by tapping into the very same financial capital markets and global trade regime that have extracted wealth and raw materials from the Global South while keeping them poor and crippling them with an unsustainable debt burden. They point out that rather than advancing demands for industrialized countries paying their historical climate debt or freeing up funds by cancellation of the illegitimate debt that countries across the global South are burdened with, the TFFF deepens dependency on this structurally unjust global financial system and ties forest protection to capital market interests under World Bank control.

In the Manifesto in defense of territories and food sovereignty against nature markets, 55 farmers, fishers, Indigenous Peoples, and Afro-descendant organizations, social movements, territorial collectives, and human rights and environmental activists from 14 countries in Latin American and the Caribbean, “denounce financialization mechanisms within the framework of climate policy, particularly the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF)”. The manifesto highlights that because of how the TFFF intends to raise the money it hopes to pay out to countries with tropical forests, “it is ultimately the taxpayers of the Global South themselves who must finance the protection of forests historically deforested by corporations from countries in the North and, moreover, who will guarantee the returns for financial elites”. (12) The Brazilian Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) notes that “even though it’s presented as a big innovation, the Fund represents an expansion of the financialization of nature in tropical forests. It does not solve the central problems such as deforestation and fires in these biomes, and it transforms forests into financial assets, which serve to ensure maximum profits for investors in the Global North”. (13) The 32-member Africa Make Big Polluters Pay coalition has urged world leaders to reject the “profit-making instrument disguised as climate action” and pointed out that “even one percent of global military spending would provide six times the TFFF’s anticipated annual disbursement without exposing countries to financial risks”. (14) The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) reject the TFFF, “a false solution that deepens the financialization and commodification of forests rather than protecting them”. (15) The Statement from Civil Society Organizations on the Launch of the Tropical Forests Forever Fund (TFFF), issued by the Global Forest Coalition and signed by more than 200 organizations (as of 24 November 2025) points out that the “World Bank will have significant influence over the TFFF”. (16)  In their position paper on the TFFF, Friends of the Earth International points out that the institutional set-up of the TFFF “reproduces colonial patterns where countries of the South, and especially their forest communities, become passive recipients of decisions made by Northern countries and financial centers regarding their territories and natural resources”, and that it “demands debt cancellation, historical reparations for the climate debt owed by Northern countries, and opposes mechanisms that exacerbate the unjust debt of Southern countries”. (17) The “Let’s STOP the TFFF Now!” statement signed by more than 200 organizations from 43 countries (as of 24 November 2025), denounces that “the TFFF would make wealthy investors who profit from forest destruction look like forest defenders” and “implicitly reinforce capitalist, racist, colonialist and patriarchal patterns of destruction”. (18) 

Resistance continues while proponents struggle to raise funds to kick-start the TFFF

The Brazilian government’s fundraising efforts to secure announcements for US25 billion dollars in ‘sponsor’ funding during COP30 did not pay off: less than 25 percent of this amount was announced, with only a small part of this unconditional commitments. (19) Still, TFFF proponents continue to promote the proposal. A new deadline to secure a scaled-down minimum of US10 billion dollars in ‘seed funding’ has been set for the end of 2026 and some proponents are claiming that the fund could also operate with as little as US50 billion dollars. Critics point out that such a “MiniTFFF” would still cost more or less US200 million dollars in yearly fees and administration costs and that such a MiniTFFF ‘could end up funding its own fees rather than forests.’

As long as the threat of the TFFF remains on the table, it is important to keep insisting why the TFFF must be stopped and why it will not halt deforestation. Below, we have listed some materials to help spread the word about why TFFF is nothing to celebrate and why it is important to say no to this latest top-down international forest policy idea that reinforces capitalist-colonialist oppression and exploits the crippling debt burden of countries in the Global South. 

Materials with more arguments on why to reject The Financializing Forests Faster proposal of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility:

• World Rainforest Movement (WRM): TFFF: A new trap for peoples and forests in the Global South.  
• The CornerHouse: Spoils of a Continuing Colonialism: The Tropical Forest Forever Facility.
• Global Forest Coalition (GFC): NO to TFFF, YES to Forest Rights.
• Friends of the Earth International: Analysis of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. A Friends of the Earth International position paper.  
• Movimento Sem Terra (MST): FFFF: por que não devemos celebrar o colonialismo verde sobre nossas florestas?
• The “Let’s STOP the TFFF Now!” statement is still open for sign-on from organizations, movements and collectives. It is available here.

References
    (1) For more detail, see ‘The Tropical Forests Forever Facility: “The worst conservation fund ever?”’ on REDD-Monitor.  
    (2) Third World Network. Review of the Tropical Forest Investment Fund.
    (3) For details of the ‘deforestation test’ that countries have to pass through before they qualify for payments, see the chapter ‘How likely is it that countries with tropical forests will pass the ‘deforestation test’?’ in the WRM publication TFFF: A new trap for peoples and forests in the Global South.
    (4) REDD-Monitor. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility has raised just over US$2 billion. Almost entirely from Brazil and Indonesia.
    (5) REDD-Monitor. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility has raised just over US$2 billion. Almost entirely from Brazil and Indonesia. 
    (6) See, for example: Jubileu Sur Brasil. Brasil, 200 anos de (in)dependência e dívida or Debt Justice. Colonialism and Debt. Colonialism and Debt. The global economy is shaped by a history of exploitation. Learn more about the links between colonialism and debt.
    (7) The CornerHouse. Spoils of a Continuing Colonialism: The Tropical Forest Forever Facility.
    (8) Philip Fearnside. The mire of Brazil’s BR-319 highway: Deforestation, development, and the banality of evil (commentary).
    (9) DW, 2025. Desmatamento para cultivo de soja volta a assombrar Amazônia. www.dw.com/pt-br/desmatamento-para-cultivo-de-soja-volta-a-assombrar-floresta-amazônica/ and IMEA, Senar MT, 2025. “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) of soybeans in Mato Grosso showed a recovery in the 2024/25 harvest compared to the previous cycle, reaching BRL 1,961.45 [USD 363.65] per hectare". (p.16). 
    (10) WRM Bulletin 257. The World of Speculation and Green Bonds.  
    (11) Christ REDD Monitor. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility has raised just over US$2 billion. Almost entirely from Brazil and Indonesia.
    (12)  Manifesto in defense of territories and food sovereignty against nature markets, 2025. 
    (13)  MST, 2025. TFFF: por que não devemos celebrar o colonialismo verde sobre nossas florestas?
    (14)  Businessday, 2025. African bloc rejects Brazil’s $125bn forest fund over fears of corporate capture.
    (15)  DCJ, 2025. Quotesheet: Tropical Forest Forever Facility or The Fake Forest Fund?  
    (16)  GFC, 2025. NO to TFFF, YES to Forest Rights.
    (17)  FoEI, 2025. FoEI’s analysis of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility.
    (18)  Let’s STOP the TFFF Now! 
    (19)  REDD-Monitor. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility has raised just over US$2 billion. Almost entirely from Brazil and Indonesia.
 

Costa Rica was the first country in Latin America and the Caribbean to receive World Bank payments for a national program called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, better known as Jurisdictional REDD+. Indeed, the country presents itself to be a leader in this. (1) In its official propaganda, the government claims that a percentage of the funds are distributed among indigenous communities who protect forests. (2) However, the reality is different. In the last decade, the state has reduced investment in health, housing, education, and other basic rights for the population. And in indigenous territories, it has made these resources conditional based on communities' acceptance of REDD+. In other words, if they do not accept REDD+, there would be no funds to guarantee their most basic rights – including the right to their territory. 

There are eight Indigenous Peoples in the country – Gnobes, Huetar, Chorotegas, Borucas, Broran, Maleku, Cabécar y Bribri – spread across 24 territories. Most of their territories are forested. The Cabécar and Bribri peoples have the largest territories in terms of both forest area and proportion of the country. The Bribri Indigenous Territory, spanning 43,690 hectares, is located in the southeastern part of the country, between the Atlantic coast and the La Amistad International Park. 

In this article, we hear from Emmanuel Buitrago Páez of the Kólkuák Indigenous clan of the Bribri of Talamanca. He is a coordinating member of the National Front for Indigenous Peoples (FRENAPI, by its Spanish acronym), a collective that represents eight Indigenous Peoples from at least 15 territories. He talks about their struggle to resist pressure from the state, which seeks to subjugate forests and their communities to the interests of the polluting companies that are behind REDD+ and carbon markets. 

Communities in resistance

I am Emmanuel Buitrago Páez, from the Kólkuák Indigenous clan, in the Bribri Indigenous Territory of Talamanca. In this area we have 32 communities, distributed into clans that are family units, and more than 80 percent of them are farmers. We produce organic bananas, plantains and cacao to sell, and we also produce many other products for exchange and consumption. Being on the border with Panama, the five most important rivers in the border region flow through our territory: Coén, Lary, Tlírí, Urén, and Yorki, which together form the Sixaola river that marks the border between the two countries. Due to our close relationship with spirituality Sibö/God and Iiria/Earth, more than 70 percent of our territory has forests or is used for organic production. 

We have taken a strong stance against REDD+ in this territory. We denounce the Costa Rican government for imposing conservation and financing models that threaten Indigenous Peoples, and for moving forward with its plans to commodify and privatize ‘common goods’. It does this through coercion and structural violence against those of us who are fighting to defend the earth, rivers, coasts and forests, and to reaffirm our rights to health, education, and housing. 

Indigenous Peoples do not need REDD+ to protect forests. We have extraordinary experience taking care of forests, because forests are linked to our very lives and spirituality. Nonetheless, some indigenous leaders who have been pressured by the state's budget cuts, ended up accepting the funds offered through REDD+. Meanwhile, the communities still do not know the truth about the program; they have not been told where it comes from, who finances it, or how the financing arrives and under what conditions. 

This initiative, therefore, caused divisions in several indigenous communities in the country due to disagreements over criteria and the position to take in negotiations. This has destabilized community governance and weakened its credibility.

Jurisdictional REDD+: state blackmail 

In 2008, Costa Rica was selected by the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) to begin preparations to implement the Jurisdictional REDD+ program. (3) Since then, many indigenous communities have questioned the state's actions, given that our participation and representation were not guaranteed, nor were we informed. There was also no strategy implemented to ensure transparency in the use of funds.

As part of this process, state representatives – through state institutions and associations – began visiting indigenous communities throughout the country, supposedly to inform them and consult with them about the REDD+ program. However, these meetings, which lasted no more than three hours on average, were not intended to let communities decide, but to merely provide superficial information about the REDD+ project. In our Bribri Territory in Talamanca, there are about 10,000 of us. However, there were no more than 100 people at that meeting, which is very low representation. Additionally, instead of informing and consulting with us, the state representatives asked people to present a list of needs in the territory. And in response to the demands that were listed (a bridge, an aqueduct, a school, etc.), the state representatives said that they would be covered by the REDD+ fund. This is how they take advantage of communities' needs. 

In response, indigenous communities throughout the country began to hold demonstrations and, in 2014, we managed to halt the implementation of REDD+. (4) The main reason was the government's unwillingness to consult with communities through a free, prior, informed, and good-faith process (as required by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization – ILO – to which Costa Rica is a signatory). (5) 

In this process, we, the Bribri of the indigenous territory of Talamanca, sent the "Declaration of the Bribri Territory Free of REDD+", to several authorities, including the government of the Republic of Costa Rica and the Board of Directors of the Association of Integral Development of the Bribri Indigenous Territory (ADITIBRI, by its Spanish acronym). In the document, which was drafted in 2016 and signed by more than 300 people, we were emphatic: "Exercising our right to hold our own consultation, we decide to reject the REDD+ project, its consultation protocol, and any modification of the project's name, and we declare the Bribri Territory of Talamanca to be free of REDD+, from this day forward". (6)

However, some time later, the REDD+ implementation process began to move forward again throughout the country. The state's strategy of using people's needs to justify the program and pressure them to accept it in their territories was instrumental in this. 

As part of that strategy, in 2019 the government approved and implemented laws such as the law to 'Strengthen Public Finances', which allowed it to freeze budgets and contracts every year, including those allocated to indigenous territories. This was used as a way to pressure communities to accept alternative sources of income, such as REDD+.

In this context, the state began to suspend contracts for Payments for Environmental Services (PSA, by its Spanish acronym), one of the few funds that communities receive collectively. These are resources that the country collects through taxes, which it then uses to pay communities for forest conservation. The Indigenous Bribri Territory of Talamanca went from having seven contracts in 2019 to three in 2023, which restricted support for the most vulnerable and dispossessed communities in the territory.  

At the same time, the government has significantly cut investment in educational plans and programs, infrastructure, school meal services, administrative services, transport scholarships, and regular study scholarships. This leads to greater inequality, and it constitutes a failure to guarantee the right to education. In light of this reality, some indigenous representatives think that the limited REDD+ funds could provide a solution for this lack of resources, when in fact this has been a programmatic action by the state. This situation has become the justification to advance REDD+ in indigenous territories; REDD+ is presented as a palliative measure to provide resources to address the educational needs of communities. And with that, the state moves forward with REDD+, while limiting investment in education to the purchase of school furniture – such as chairs, tables, desks, etc.

The same thing happened with health care. The public health system is implemented by the Costa Rican Social Security Fund – where there have been cases of corruption, underinvestment, and failure to respond to health care needs. For example, in Talamanca – including in indigenous Bribri territory – part of the REDD+ funds are now going to support the Health Boards, something that is the state's responsibility to finance. (7)  

Similarly, low investment in public water services, such as those provided by Acueductos y Alcantarillados (AyA), has been another argument to justify REDD+: according to its proponents, REDD+ would supposedly provide solutions for the lack of water infrastructure. 

The state and its institutions believe that REDD+ funds and other carbon trading businesses will solve problems that should really be addressed by the state. The truth is, nothing that REDD+ supposedly provides will solve the underlying problems; rather, it just offers palliative, temporary or superficial measures. It is the state's responsibility to provide funding for the public policies that its institutions develop to respond to the needs – and guarantee the rights – of indigenous communities. 

As for land rights, the state also lacks a plan developed with and by communities to restore territories, that is, to return to Indigenous Peoples all the lands that legally belong to them. On the contrary, the state imposes carbon businesses and defunds public policies that would address the needs and guarantee the rights of peoples. 

The main beneficiaries: the people who deforest

According to the document, 'Costa Rica National REDD+ Strategy,' the state's total investment to reduce emissions between 2018 and 2024 is around 1.177 billion dollars. Of that total, 92 percent (US 1.082 million dollars) corresponds to what the country is already investing in REDD-related policies, such as the National Forestry Development Plan and the Protected Wilderness Areas Policy; these items are included in regular institutional budgets. (8) 

As for the remaining eight percent (US 95 million dollars), the Government intends to cover it, in part, with the income it expects to obtain from selling emissions reductions to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), which is managed by the World Bank. (9) This income is calculated to be US 63 million dollars, of which the country has already received US34 million dollars. (10) The government says it will invest this amount in actions to reach its target emissions reductions and to preserve 640,000 hectares of forest. However, the program will allocate most of this money, 69 percent, to landowners and rural producers in the private sector – in other words, to one of the sectors that bears the most responsibility for deforestation and land conflicts with indigenous communities. Meanwhile, 16 percent of the revenue is earmarked for us, the Indigenous Peoples. 

Using a forest preservation and conservation policy to benefit the sector that most deforests is a pretty clear indicator of who the government and REDD+ benefit: those who are the biggest threat to Indigenous Peoples' rights to the territory, and therefore, the biggest threat to forests. 

Preserving forests: the path is to guarantee territorial rights

Costa Rican law guarantees the right to indigenous reserves exclusively to the communities who inhabit these lands. However, there are landowners who occupy these lands with the complicity of the state. 

Landholders with ties to politicians, judges, prosecutors, and municipal governments have set fires in indigenous territories – occupying land, threatening, intimidating, and displacing indigenous communities from their lands, in violation of the law. (11) Indigenous territories are being affected by large producers of pineapple and banana monocultures, which generate pollution due to the use of agrochemicals on the plantations – specifically in the South Pacific and the northern regions of the country. 

Many Indigenous Peoples risk their lives fighting against this reality and defending their territories. Since 2019, for example, there have been two murders that have gone unpunished. The victims were the indigenous comrades, Sergio Rojas, from the territory of Salitre, and Jerhy Rivera, from the territory of Térraba. Both were killed by invading landowners. (12) 

The impunity of state power structures allows for the consolidation of aggression, discrimination, racism, and the imposition of new forms of colonization of minds, property, spiritualities, structures, and cultural diversity.

Our collective, the National Front for Indigenous People (FRENAPI), holds the state responsible for the attacks and violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, since it has failed to guarantee or implement the rights enshrined in the Constitution and in international law for Indigenous Peoples. 

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Therefore, the Costa Rican state has been irresponsible; it has not upheld its obligation to guarantee life, conservation and the people's right to land.

This vacuum is used as an argument to advance REDD+. This program is presented as an alternative way to finance territorial regularization that would guarantee the full recovery of indigenous lands currently held by landowners or businesspeople; that is, it would guarantee the return of the lands to their rightful owners: the Indigenous Peoples. But beyond whether REDD+ is approved or not, it is the state's responsibility to settle the age-old debt of returning lands to indigenous communities. 

Conclusion

There are two proposals and agendas underway. One comes from the state, which is promoting REDD+; intellectual property over biodiversity; expansion of plantations; mining; privatization of public services and assets; oil exploration; hydroelectric exploitation; drug trafficking; corruption; cuts to public funds and investments; and the privatization of forests, coasts and public areas. 

And another, very different agenda comes from the Indigenous Peoples of Costa Rica. It is based on spirituality; forests; nature; food; medicine; our own education; language; identity; culture; and our own structures. But above all, it is based on territorial reaffirmation, which implies the total regularization of indigenous territories. 

REDD+, through deceitful methods, pawns off forests to supposedly guarantee other rights – such as education, health and land. In this way it restricts the freedom and the good faith of Indigenous Peoples. 

The state must guarantee rights unconditionally. An inherent function of state institutions is to respond to public needs, plans and policies. In the case of the Indigenous Peoples in Costa Rica, the state must provide economic resources to communities that respond to the peoples' own agendas – without conditions or the use of blackmail to get them to accept REDD+.

From our villages, we have experienced the dispossession of 'common goods' through cronyism and the imposition of the state's agendas and structure. This reveals the continuation of a murderous colonial model of conquest, usurpation and extractivism of our 'common goods' and of LIFE itself. 

We condemn the bad practices of governments – the fiscal, classist, and violent practices that strip peoples of their identity, lands, spirituality, forests, coasts, rivers, and ‘common goods’, based on the peoples' particular circumstances due to customs, language, their economic situation and other social barriers. 

We demand recognition of and respect for the critical role that indigenous communities – from their territories – play in maintaining and defending the customs, spirituality and lands of their peoples. We reaffirm indigenous communities' rights to have a voice and influence, and to be afforded respect for the cultural wealth they represent. This must be allowed in all political, social, economic and cultural spaces. 

Inspired by our people’s LIFE Project, we propose and call for common and collective causes. For the ‘common good’, for LIFE, we will continue reaffirming and staking our dreams, which we have the right to weave with ancestral wisdom. 

We call on all Peoples to defend and reaffirm the right to 'common goods', to coasts, forests, rivers, food and water; to our own education and health; to conservation of natural and cultural ecosystems; to traditional structures; and to Indigenous Peoples' governance and autonomy.

Emmanuel Buitrago Páez, from the Indigenous Kólkuák clan, Bribri of Talamanca. Coordinating member of the collective National Front for Indigenous Peoples (FRENAPI). manolpetitan@gmail.com 

References: 

(1) The World Bank in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2025. Sustaining Forests and Strengthening Communities in Costa Rica
(2) The World Bank in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2025. Forest conservation payments in Costa Rica are supporting indigenous communities (video)
(3) REDD+ Costa Rica 2025. Forest Carbon Partnership Facility.
Documents and legal contracts about FCPF between the government of Costa Rica and the World Bank
(4) Telar Comunicación Popular, 2014. Talamanca dice No REDD+ Estas selvas no tienen precio (video).
(5) WRM, 2016. Bribri: a people never conquered who are standing up to REDD and Protest from the indigenous Bribri territory, 2015
(6) Vozes Nuestras, 2016. Comunidades Bribri de Talamanca piden ser territorio libre de REDD+ https://vocesnuestras.org/comunidades-bribris-de-talamanca-piden-ser-territorio-libre-de-redd/ and Declaration of the Bribri Territory Free of REDD+, 2016
(7) Health Boards are auxiliary bodies of hospitals, clinics and health areas that are part of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, whose purpose is to improve healthcare, administrative and financial performance, as well as to promote citizen participation. 
(8) National REDD+ Strategy Costa Rica.
(9) The lion's hare of those US$95.3 million will be raised through the sale of carbon emission reductions to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). In total, the FCPF is expected to contribute US$63 million, of which the Costa Rican government has already received more than half at the time of publication of this article. For more information, click here.
(10) The World Bank in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2025. Sustaining Forests and Strengthening Communities in Costa Rica  
(11) TV Sur Pérez Zeledón , 2020. Solution sought to the land conflict in the indigenous territory of China Kichá and Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica, 2020. Plenary session mourns death of indigenous leader and calls for investigation.
(12) Cultural Survival, 2024. Dismissal of Land Defender Sergio Rojas’ Murder Case in Costa Rica Causes Distress and Indignation
and  Cultural Survival, 2020. Segundo asesinato de defensor Indígena en Costa Rica evidencia la inacción del Estado

Even though it is surrounded by oil palm and rubber monocultures, the nearly 20,000 hectares of tropical forest comprising part of the Joghban territory is a symbol of the Joghban clan’s victory in Liberia against the multinational company, Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO). In 2018, this clan of approximately 7,000 people, spread across 50 villages, secured part of the forested territory they had been inhabiting for centuries, which EPO attempted to seize to plant oil palm. Despite this victory, though, EPO continues to exert strong pressure on Joghban lands.

Originally a British company, EPO is now a multinational corporation controlled by Malaysian palm oil giant Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd (KLK). In 2008, after the end of the civil war that devastated Liberia, EPO acquired LIBINC Oil Palm. Since then, it has claimed control of 169,000 hectares in Liberia, of which it claims to have concessions to exploit 89,000 hectares. However, part of these lands overlap with the traditional territory of the Joghban, in District No. 4, Grand Bassa County.

The conflict between EPO and the Joghban clan intensified between 2013 and 2014, when the company began operating inside the clan’s community lands without their consent. This period was marked by violent repression and strong resistance, leading to the consolidation of the Joghban’s historic victory in 2018. The approval of the Land Rights Act that same year granted communities ownership of their ancestral lands, the right to make demands of companies seeking to exploit their territories, and inclusion in consultation processes such as Free, Prior and Informed Consent.

However, foreign companies have been exerting pressure on the clan’s traditional lands for a long time, and continue to do so today. In the 1960s, two major plantation companies arrived on their land: LAC of the Socfin Group, which holds a concession for rubber plantations covering more than 12,000 hectares near Joghban territory; and the former LIBINC Oil Palm, now EPO. Today, the Joghban are surrounded by both companies' monoculture plantations, and they suffer countless impacts from this on a daily basis. Meanwhile, EPO’s greed for the clan’s territory has not abated.

What follows is a conversation with Theresa B. Sawah and Isaac G. Banwon. These two Joghban leaders and members of the Africa Informal Alliance Against Industrial Plantation Expansion played an active role in resisting EPO’s invasion of their ancestral territory. They tell us about their victorious resistance, emphasizing that the struggle continues. As Isaac said, “Our victory is not complete yet, because the company has not tired of coming after the land; we need to raise more awareness in order to secure the portion of land we still have.”

The first wave of land-grabbing: The arrival of foreign tree monoculture companies in the 1960s

WRM – What was traditional life like before oil palm and rubber companies arrived in the region in the 1960s?

Isaac – From before the 1960s to the present day, our traditional livelihood has depended on the land and forest: we cut wild palms, perform traditional farming, hunt, and do cooperative work as a community. Oil palm is the main commodity that has traditionally been grown in the region, and it is our primary means of survival. For example, cutting wild oil palm enabled me to go to school; I paid for my primary education and university tuition with native palm.

WRM – How did the arrival of the oil palm monoculture company, LIBINC at that time, and the rubber company, LAC-Socfin, impact Joghban communities?

Isaac - According to Elders and other sources, the company first arrived in 1962 and began negotiations with the government for land. Later, the Joghban clan and its surrounding territory were chosen for LAC and LIBINC Oil Palm operations. The companies took the lands they occupied by force. The communities didn't know about the agreements the government had made with the company back in the 1960s. 

Theresa - They wanted our land for expansion; their people wanted to grab our land. We have learned from our forefathers that they used airplanes to survey the land without our citizens knowing about their intentions. Our forefathers tell us that, early one morning, the government took their men and their machines, and began to cut the forest. They took almost half of our land. Today our families are living on all the little pieces of land that remained.

Isaac - From that time forward, our communities have faced terrible life conditions due to these companies' actions. Such actions have included grabbing land, and employing plantation security forces, the police and the army of the government to burn down communities. In this situation, much violence has occurred, including rape, teenage pregnancy, early marriage, destruction of cultural and traditional bushes, and more (1). Women have suffered sexual violence and early marriages. Meanwhile, there has been forced migration of people from other communities that caused the separation of children from their families, and other abuses.

The second wave of land-grabbing: The resumption of oil palm exploitation with EPO after the civil war, resistance, and the victory (2008–2018)

WRM – What was it like after the civil war in Liberia, when EPO bought LIBINC in 2008? How did the Joghban react to this?

Isaac – In 2008, after the civil war in Liberia, when EPO had purchased LIBINC, the company occupied additional acres of land in our territory without the community's consent. The major abuse at this time was land-grabbing; the company wanted our land to expand its oil palm plantation. We lost our forest, and people in the community were afraid they would be evicted at any time to make way for the company's expansion. 

Theresa -  They started cutting down the forest. They started throwing those trees almost to the river. Everyone saw what was happening and our elders and our citizens went to stop them. They said ´no´ to this land-grabbing. There we began to put up resistance that indeed no one was going to cross over for the second time because we don't have much land left. 

Isaac -  By then, the company met resistance from us members of the community, as well as civil society organizations, like Sustainable Development Institute (SDI). Equatorial Palm Oil conducted a survey in 2014, with the goal of delineating the area of their alleged concession. That survey attempt met strong community resistance. Women also played an important role in the resistance struggle. As for the men, they were the lead advocates in protecting the land. 

WRM – Could you tell us about your involvement in the community’s resistance process against EPO's land-grabbing?

Theresa -  I am a women's rights activist and Director of the Joghban United Women Empowerment and Development Organization in Liberia. The way women organized in these struggles was important, because the women helped the community to come together, to have one voice and understanding, and to work in one direction to bring our group together. Women were afraid at that time, but when EPO came in to grab our land, when they came with guards who were using guns and other things, and grabbing our men and beating them, we women came together. We gathered in the forest and decided to find food for those men who were on the battlefield. At that time, we prepared potatoes, yams, bananas, cassava and rice, so that after a violent encounter, our men would have something to eat. So this showed me that when women organize, it helps us to have one understanding and use one voice to struggle.

Isaac - I got involved in the struggle in 2013 and 2014. We traveled on foot from the community to the city to meet with the county superintendent. We organized a peaceful protest and petitioned the government in 2014. That year, then President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf committed to helping the communities protect their lands from EPO’s expansion. I was one of the delegates who met with the county Senator and petitioned him about our situation. I have organized a lot of meetings to resist the expansion of the company. It was this struggle that encouraged me to establish an NGO – the Institute of Sustainable Agriculture (ISA) – to defend the land through agriculture. I have been involved in this struggle ever since.

WRM – How did the company respond to the Joghban’s resistance?

Isaac - From 2008 to 2014, the company put a lot of pressure on those who resisted; people were beaten, arrested by the police and company security, and later released. I saw my father be treated badly and dragged away in a security vehicle by plantation security and police during one of our peaceful protests in 2014. He and others have their own stories about the struggle.

WRM - Can you tell us about the victory your people achieved after the struggle?

Isaac -  I still remember the approval of the Land Rights Act in 2018. The day was very beautiful and special. We celebrated our victory in the Joghban community; there was a great party and we even killed a cow.

Theresa - Now we can indeed protect this piece of land that belongs to us. It belongs to our forefathers. So from that point, we obtained registration and government approval for our land, and we can use these documents as legal proof and a tool to protect our territorial rights against future incursions by the company. No one will come and authorize land-grabbing in our lands. Whenever anyone comes, at any time, including any stranger from EPO, we can prove to them directly that this land belongs to us. My women will dare to attack that stranger, not to fight, but to ask them some terrible questions and tell them that they have no right to come buy or grab the land. This is our land for the Joghban women and citizens. 

Isaac -  What has united us in our struggle is having the control of our land today, tomorrow and forever. Even though we lost some communities and forest, our victory is that we still have some of our land. But our victory is not complete yet, because the company has not tired of coming after the land. We need to raise more awareness to secure the portion of land we still have.  

After the victory, pressure on the land increases (2025)

WRM - Can you describe your community’s surroundings today?

Isaac - The migration of people from previous communities that were devastated in the 1960s to new communities has brought overpopulation and increased poverty. Our community is surrounded by plantation companies, which has other negative impacts on us. Amongst other impacts, we have suffered water pollution from EPO's production, and from LAC-Socfin washing their chemical containers in the rivers that we drink and get fish from. We do not have freedom of movement due to policies that restrain us from carrying our native palm oil while passing through EPO's plantation.  

WRM – Can you give examples of the types of difficulties EPO has imposed on the community?

Isaac - The main struggle with EPO is related to the restriction of movement of people in the community. In 2022, the company created a policy that nobody should pass through the plantation carrying native palm oil; if you are caught carrying native palm oil, you will be arrested and questioned. And there are over 50 communities behind the plantation. So there is no freedom of movement for people living in these communities who get their livelihood from harvesting native palms, or who have their own small farm. This is the daily reality in the plantation. 

Before passing through the plantation carrying native palm oil, we need what they call a “pass” from the company. And it can be very difficult to get this “pass” from EPO security. Sometimes, it can take you more than three hours to get it. This can make people impatient and want to pass through the plantation without getting the “pass”. Some days ago, I was traveling through the plantation with five gallons of native palm oil and I was detained. So it is a situation that happens every day.

Last year, a woman couldn’t give birth. She was supposed to have a C-section at the hospital. Her husband lived in the village, so they had to call him to bring money so that she could have the operation. At that time, the only way to get money to pay the hospital bill was to come and sell native palm oil. He was traveling with some gallons of oil from the village coming to the town. He was stopped and had to wait the whole day for the “pass”. Before he was able to provide the money for the operation, she died in the process. The trauma still lives with the man because of the death of his wife. So there are a lot more things that happen when it comes to people's freedom of movement. Every day people complain, and we have sent the complaints about this to the central government, but there has been no redress.

WRM - How is EPO dealing with the expansion of their land, despite Joghban’s victory and opposition to it? 

Isaac- The company is not expanding now, but it is making an effort to expand. They are having many secret meetings with chiefs, elders and traditional leaders. This is a threat, because they have these meetings to convince people with money and other items, like rice. They also divide the communities using money and food, and by promising employment to some youth and elders. Their major target is the land, so we see these meetings as a threat to us.  

WRM – Has there been any retaliation against the community to make them give up their land?

Isaac - The company is making life hard for community members so that they will give up the land. Additionally, the central government pays less attention to the communities around the so-called concession zone because the government wants to make sure the communities surrender the land to the company. All the surrounding villages are living in fear that at any moment the company will expand on our land; as such, community people are afraid to invest in cash crop agriculture. 

WRM - There has been a lot of repression throughout this struggle. What gave the Joghban Clan the strength to fight? 

Isaac - Our strength came from realizing that the land is our life, and, as such, it should not be taken away from us by any individual, plantation company, or government. We also came to understand that international organizations were there to provide support if communities were ready to resist the expansion of the company. The land is everything to us; we use it for medicine, food, housing, farming, and more. The land is our life and our natural heritage. We are going to resist, and always resist, because land matters to us and to our future generations.

Theresa - The forest is our life; it is everything for our people. The land is our life. So they will not take the land from us. 

WRM – Do you have any message for other communities struggling like yours?

Isaac - To other communities that are in a similar fight, I would say that the first thing to do is to be united, to continue to resist lawfully, and to partner with other communities who have already succeeded in their struggles. And to the international community: your support is needed at all times if any community is to succeed in their struggle against plantation companies.  
 

Reference
(1) Traditional bushes are our secret and sacred bushes where we consult with traditional gods and goddesses. We also get medicine from these bushes. 

More information:
-  SDI and Friends of the Earth International, 2014. MEDIA BRIEFING -Liberian communities overturn Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) land grab 
-  Friends of the Earth International, 2014. The Jogbahn Clan (video)