WCS Brasil and the State of Amazonas agreed to work together to develop the first pilot areas for a new high integrity forest investment initiative designed to pay the stewards of high integrity tropical forests for the ecosystem services those forests provide, including their CO2 absorption, which helps cool the planet. The agreement was signed at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Climate Conference.

These forests and their ecosystem services do not fit in the logic of carbon offset markets and no current climate finance mechanism assigns any financial value to them. Working with partners, WCS aims to create this new high integrity forest investment asset class, pilot the approach at a limited number of locations (including Amazonas), and build out the "system" to enable scaling and uptake in other geographies and by other organizations.

The MoU was signed by Secretary of Environment Eduardo Taveira for Amazonas State, and Daniel Zarin, WCS Executive Director for Forests and Climate Change, on behalf of WCS Brasil. The MoU specifies a number of actions in the first half of 2023, including a robust workplan, consultations and negotiations with local communities in and around pilot conservation and sustainable management units, and agreements with "first-mover" buyers on the terms of their initial purchases.

The WCS high integrity forest investment initiative is intended to add a new tool to the toolkit currently available to address the climate crisis and finance critical forest conservation.

Said Padu Franco, Director of the WCS Andes, Amazonia, Orinoquia Program: “Amazonas State is the most important jurisdiction for the preservation of high integrity tropical forests in the world; no country has a comparable extension of them. This MoU thus represents a significant step in advancing the forest investment class that recognizes the outstanding CO2 absorption role of well conserved forests. WCS is proud to partner with the State government and commends its leadership to innovate on financial mechanisms toward forest conservation.”