The Netherlands pledges up to $500m for tropical forests

The Dutch government plans to invest up to $500 million over 10 years in the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. The fund will pay countries that keep their tropical forests standing about $4 per hectare a year.

Brazil launched the fund at the COP30 climate conference in November 2025. Its target capital is $125 billion, $100 billion of it from the private sector, enough to protect 800–900 million hectares of forest, roughly 200 times the size of the Netherlands. Forest cover will be checked by satellite, and part of the money will go straight to Indigenous peoples and local communities.

The pledge is still conditional: details are being worked out with the World Bank, and the formal start is expected in mid-2027. WWF Netherlands called the decision a big breakthrough. The logic is simple and fair: a living forest is worth more than a felled one, and now someone will finally pay for that.