Colombia confirms accession to forest fund proposed by Brazil at COP28

Colombia confirmed accession to a fund for the protection of tropical forests proposed by Brazil at COP28, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in December 2023. The decision was reiterated in a joint statement signed by both president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro at a meeting in Bogotá on Wednesday, April 17. Investments in the fund will be focused on green assets and the proceeds will go to countries that conserve their rainforests. The proposal is that a fixed annual sum be paid for each hectare of standing forest, with a significant rebate on the sum received for each hectare of forest cleared or degraded.

"We share the world’s largest tropical forest, an incomparable reserve of biodiversity and source of valuable knowledge and technologies. Stimulating bioeconomy entails adequate use of such resources, in harmony with nature and the peoples of the forest”.
LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA
President of Brazil

This initiative which is due to be launched during COP30 that will take place in Belém, Pará, in November 2025, aims to enhance the value of the ecosystem services provided by tropical forests that are essential for climate regulation and maintenance of biodiversity, water resources and traditional knowledge.

In the statement, Lula thanked Petro “for having accepted the invitation for Colombia to participate in the fund’s executive committee”, which could bring benefit to some 70 forested countries. Malaysia, Ghana, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia have also been invited to join the environmental pathways of this initiative, to be coordinated by Brazil’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA).

"We share the world’s largest tropical forest, an incomparable reserve of biodiversity and source of valuable knowledge and technologies. Stimulating a bioeconomy entails adequate use of such resources, in harmony with nature and the peoples of the forest”, stated Lula during closing of the Brazil-Colombia Business Forum.

COOPERATION – The two countries agreed to coordinate policy and scientific actions that contribute toward their common sustainable future. “Energy transition offers us an extraordinary possibility for attracting the entire world to contribute toward investments, for the development of a new energy matrix”, said President Lula to the press. “It is important that we clearly understand the wealth that we have at hand, and that we – government and entrepreneurs, business people and workers - work together to build this new standard of our relations.”

Greater cooperation, according to the presidents, will deepen the debate on conservation, bioeconomy, fair and equitable sharing of benefits and efforts toward ecological transition in the region. Brazil will host COP30 in 2025, whereas Colombia, between October and November of this year, will organize COP16 on Biodiversity besides, during this same period, holding COPs on the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing.

BORDERS – Brazil and Colombia agreed to increase coordination on environmental issues at the border, with guidelines so that the Ministries of Environment of both countries consolidate joint agendas for the sustainable use of biodiversity, sustainable forest management, and control of trade and traceability of timber. “Brazil and Colombia share 1,644 kilometers of border. We have exuberant and extraordinary Amazonian potential”, said Lula.

Participants in the Brazilian delegation included Ministers Marina Silva (Environment and Climate Change), Nísia Trindade (Health), Simone Tebet (Planning and Budget), Cida Gonçalves (Women), Silvio Almeida (Human Rights and Citizenship), Silvio Costa Filho (Ports and Airports), Camilo Santana (Education) and Wellington Dias (Development and Social Assistance). Other members of the delegation included First-lady Janja Lula da Silva, the Governor of the State of Maranhão, Carlos Brandão and parliamentarians.