Terra Silva to accelerate climate-smart practices in tropical forests worldwide
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation today announced the launch of Terra Silva, a $90 million impact investing collaborative designed to respond to the challenges of global climate change. Terra Silva will make investments focused on the conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of critical tropical forests worldwide.
“Forests currently provide the only proven carbon-negative solution at scale,” said Susan Phinney Silver, Mission Investing Director at the Packard Foundation. “Given the urgency of climate change, we are committed to using mission investments in new ways to amplify and accelerate efforts like Terra Silva to reduce greenhouse gases as fast as possible.”
Terra Silva is launching at a pivotal time for sustainable forestry and related agriculture practices in the market. It will focus on three targets: accelerating reforestation, conservation, and afforestation in tropical forest regions; creating more environmentally and socially sustainable forest management practices at scale within critical tropical forests; and improving the sustainability of emerging climate-smart forestry and agriculture practices. In these ways, Terra Silva will mobilize private financing to conserve and restore tropical forests, promote biodiversity, and support thriving communities in and around critical tropical forests worldwide.
The ultimate goal of Terra Silva is to significantly expand opportunities for commercial investment in sustainable forestry and agriculture by pioneering new investment models, accelerating their adoption, and helping build market infrastructure for climate-smart forestry. More information can be found here.
Terra Silva will incorporate catalytic capital – investment capital that is patient, risk-tolerant, concessionary, and flexible in order to unlock impact and additional investment that would not otherwise be possible – in the form of an investment vehicle financed by the Packard Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and another mission-driven investor.
The Packard Foundation’s mission investment to Terra Silva is part of the Foundation’s deep commitment to invest in and build climate solutions at scale. Since 2010, the Packard Foundation has approved over $80 million in mission investments for climate-smart solutions and innovations.
The MacArthur Foundation is making its loan to Terra Silva as part of the Catalytic Capital Consortium, an investment, learning, and market development initiative launched earlier this year in collaboration with the Omidyar Network and The Rockefeller Foundation. To advance the goals of the initiative, MacArthur is investing up to $150 million on a matching basis to support funds or intermediaries that demonstrate the power of catalytic capital across diverse sectors and regions. Additional investments are being sourced through an invitational proposal process and should be announced in the first half of 2020.
“Our goal is to inform, inspire, and empower investors who want to use catalytic capital to help realize the full potential of impact investing,” said Debra Schwartz, Managing Director of Impact Investments for MacArthur. “MacArthur is honored and excited to collaborate with the Packard Foundation in this new investment partnership. By fueling sustainable forestry solutions, Terra Silva will create immediate positive environmental and social impact and help build a market that is vital to fighting climate change.”
About the David and Lucile Packard Foundation
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is a private family foundation created in 1964 by David Packard (1912–1996), cofounder of the Hewlett-Packard Company, and Lucile Salter Packard (1914–1987). The Packard Foundation provides grants to nonprofit organizations in the following program areas: Conservation and Science; Population and Reproductive Health; Children, Families, and Communities; and Local Grantmaking. The Foundation makes national and international grants and has a special focus on the Northern California counties of San Benito, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey. Foundation grantmaking includes support for a wide variety of activities including direct services, research and policy development, and public information and education. Learn more at www.packard.org.
About the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. MacArthur is placing a few big bets that truly significant progress is possible on some of the world’s most pressing social challenges, including advancing global climate solutions, decreasing nuclear risk, promoting local justice reform in the U.S., and reducing corruption in Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria. In addition to the MacArthur Fellows Program and the global 100&Change competition, the Foundation continues its historic commitments to the role of journalism in a responsive democracy as well as the vitality of our headquarters city, Chicago. More information is available at www.macfound.org. For more information about the Catalytic Capital Consortium, visit www.macfound.org/CatalyticCapital.
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