Exclusive-France leads $2.5 billion initiative to safeguard Congo’s forest

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By Lisandra Paraguassu and Simon Jessop

BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -European nations are throwing their weight behind a $2.5 billion plan to save the Congo rainforest, a document seen by Reuters showed, launching a conservation scheme that may steal some thunder from the flagship initiative of COP30 host Brazil.

Mobilizing more money to protect and restore the world’s last remaining rainforests is a central goal of the U.N. climate talks, deliberately held in the Brazilian Amazon this year to focus on the need to fight emissions from rampant deforestation.

The French-led initiative — backed by Germany, Norway, Belgium and Britain — is called “The Belem Call for the Forests of the Congo Basin.” Backers expect to mobilise resources to help countries protect the second-largest rainforest in the world. The document written in French, dated November 6, was signed by the five European nations.

“The donors are … committing to mobilize more than $2.5 billion over the next five years, in addition to the domestic resources that will be mobilized by Central African countries for the protection and sustainable management of the forests of the Congo Basin,” said the document.

The signatories said they also aim to help African nations reduce deforestation through technology, training and partnerships.

The Congo, the Amazon, the world’s biggest rainforest, and the Borneo-Mekong-Southeast Asia basin, the third-largest, all face threats from expanding farm frontiers, logging, mining, and other industries.

While protecting the Congo has drawn attention because it now absorbs more net greenhouse gases than other forests, the timing of the news threatened to compete with Brazil’s focus on a global forest fund at the center of its COP30 agenda.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has touted the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), as the future of climate finance because it replaces grants with a more scalable investment model.

“In theory, both initiatives are very different,” said a diplomat familiar with both proposals, noting that the TFFF would offer annual payments to rainforest nations with no strings attached. Still, the optics of two rival rainforest funds may be unhelpful, the source added.

Norway also pledged $3 billion to the TFFF on Thursday, the biggest contribution so far. France said it could contribute up to 500 million euros to the Brazilian-led initiative.

(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu in Belem and Simon Jessop in Sao Paulo; Editing by Brad Haynes and Diane Craft)