The Spirit of Belem: Brazil’s $5.5B Plan to Unite Nations for Forest Protection

A new “spirit of Belem” is emerging from the Amazon, as Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attempts to unite the world behind a $5.5 billion financial plan to save tropical forests. His “Tropical Forests Forever Facility” is the centerpiece of a summit aimed at finally halting deforestation.
The proposal, announced in the symbolic rainforest city, is a new deal for 74 developing countries. It would pay them to keep their forests standing, using an innovative financing model based on interest-bearing loans from wealthy nations and commercial investors.
The goal is to make preservation a more powerful economic force than destruction. Brazil is arguing that the global reward of absorbing carbon dioxide far outweighs the short-term profits of logging and ranching. Norway has already backed this vision with a $3 billion pledge.
A core tenet of the Belem proposal is climate justice. The fund’s rules explicitly allocate 20 percent of the money to Indigenous peoples, recognizing their millennia-long role as the forest’s most effective guardians.
However, this spirit of financial unity is being tested by political division. The leaders of the world’s top three polluters—the US, China, and India—were absent, a move that prompted the UN chief to warn of a “moral failure” in global leadership.