By Brazil Stock Guide – The Minderoo Foundation, created by Australian billionaire and environmental activist Andrew Forrest, has become the first private entity to invest in the Tropical Forests Forever Fund (TFFF), announcing a $10 million contribution on Friday (7). The fund aims to make standing forests more valuable than cleared ones by linking conservation efforts with sustainable financial returns.
According to Broadcast, the Minderoo donation joins the $5.5 billion already pledged by Brazil, Norway, France, Indonesia, and Portugal, marking a key moment for the fund’s initial capitalization. The TFFF is designed to attract institutional and philanthropic capital to finance tropical forest protection on a global scale.
“This is an investment, not a donation. It’s long-term philanthropic capital that should attract all conscious investors,” Forrest said in a statement. He added that the goal is to inspire other foundations, family offices, and private investors to join the initiative, multiplying the impact of early contributions.
Forrest also criticized the carbon credit market, describing it as largely ineffective. “Carbon credits have often been used as a license to pollute. They categorically don’t work in most cases where they’ve been independently measured. This [TFFF] is the opposite — it makes forest protection an economically sound choice for the environment,” he stated.
The Minderoo investment is part of the first tranche of the TFFF, which seeks to raise $25 billion from governments and philanthropic entities before issuing an additional $100 billion in bonds to institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies, fixed-income managers, and central banks.
Under the plan, Forrest will earn a return equivalent to 25-year U.S. Treasury bonds, payable over 40 years following a 10-year grace period. Interest payments will follow a hierarchy: private investors first, followed by governments and philanthropic entities, and lastly, forest nations.
Of the total distributed to participating countries, 20% must go to Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, reinforcing the fund’s commitment to equitable environmental protection.