Forests cover about 31 percent of the world’s land. They are home to countless animal and plant species and touch our everyday lives in a range of ways – cleaning the air we breathe, providing food we eat, medicine we take when we’re sick, and cultural significance to many. They are also home to many Indigenous peoples and forest communities who steward over one quarter of the world’s lands.

When forests are cleared to make space for agricultural expansion or natural resource extraction, not only is the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide released, but the forest is no longer able to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, severely hastening climate change.

If tropical deforestation were a country, it would rank as the third largest source of carbon emissions after China and the United States. It is not possible to limit climate change to less than global targets of two degrees Celsius if tropical deforestation is not stopped and reversed. Furthermore, addressing tropical deforestation cannot be achieved by one organization or country alone. It will take collaboration among many partners across sectors to meet the scale of the problem.

Together with our partners at the Climate and Land Use Alliance and other donors, we are supporting a unique philanthropic initiative called “Forests, People, Climate” (FPC) that partners with funders and civil society organizations to end and reverse tropical deforestation while delivering on just and sustainable development. FPC works across three geographic strategies in Indonesia, the Congo Basin, and the Brazilian Amazon. 

This initiative focuses on making standing forests more valuable than cut forests, changing national policies so that they result in forest protection, and supporting communities that are trying to keep their forests standing – all while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation. Learn more in our GCI Overview document below.