Initiative partners join Concita Sompré on stage at Global Citizen Festival: Amazônia.
From left to right: Thibault Sorret (Equitable Earth); Gerald Prolman (Everland); Nicia Coutinho (Forest Trends); Concita Sompré (FEPIPA); Fernanda Ribeiro (Panthera); Ricardo Guimarães (BNP Paribas).
Photo by Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images for Global Citizen
Applying Prospectus-Level Discipline, Transparency, and Accountability
2025 Year-End Reflections and Progress
Hello friends,
2025 has been a pivotal year for all of us working to keep forests standing – in partnership with the Indigenous and traditional communities on the frontlines of forest protection.
Today, our mission is more critical than ever: global forest loss continues at almost 11 million hectares per year, accounting for about 20% of total greenhouse gas emissions. The science is clear that we can never stabilize our climate without ending deforestation, and four years ago at COP26, 145 countries pledged to do just that. But this powerful global commitment lacked a practical, scalable pathway to deliver it.
In response, we created The Forest Plan – a framework that aligns national commitments with community-led forest conservation on the ground. It demonstrates how directing capital to where deforestation is actually occurring and investing in the people protecting those landscapes delivers durable conservation outcomes, strengthens climate impact, and supports the long-term resilience and prosperity of Indigenous and traditional communities. Our premise was simple: when government policy and community action move together, the private sector will follow. And it did. Just ahead of COP30, last month in Belém, the next steps in realizing The Forest Plan’s vision came to life on the global stage.
A message to the World from Belém
Building on Everland’s long partnership with Global Citizen, we proposed the idea of a cultural moment alongside COP to carry a message to the private sector – that returning to community-centered forest conservation is both urgent and viable, and especially so with the new Equitable Earth Standard (more on this later). That idea evolved into Global Citizen Festival: Amazônia, where this message was delivered in front of more than 50,000 people gathered in Belém and broadcast around the world.
I was deeply honored to stand with Everland’s partners as Concita Sompré, an Indigenous leader of the Gavião Kyikatejê people, spoke with clarity and moral authority about what true partnership looks like. Her words affirmed Indigenous Peoples not as beneficiaries, but as leaders whose knowledge, stewardship, and lived experience with the forest are essential to its protection.
Standing alongside partners including Equitable Earth, Panthera, BNP Paribas, and Forest Trends, her call reminded us that when Indigenous leadership is placed at the center, conservation can succeed at scale. She closed with a truth that lingered long after the applause: when the world stands with Indigenous Peoples, the forest stands for the world.
What followed for me as I stood on the stage was not the expected thrill of 50,000 energized voices responding to Concita’s words, but a moment of profound stillness. A suspended pause that felt like crossing a threshold beyond time, where the noise of the world fell away. In that space came a clear recognition of the sacred responsibility before us, and a deep knowing that we cannot fail the Indigenous communities who have placed their trust in us. It was one of those rare moments of absolute clarity, revealing that while we are confronting the final window to reverse a destructive trajectory decades in the making, we know it can be reversed if we move together.
That moment marked the unofficial opening of COP30 – the COP of forests – not in a conference hall, but on a global music stage where Indigenous leaders stood alongside committed partners from finance, conservation, and civil society. From that stage, a message traveled far beyond Belém: that when Indigenous-centered forest conservation, public policy, and responsible private capital align, the course of history can be changed.
Though COP itself would not formally begin for another ten days, the meaning of that moment was clear. Policy matters. But forests do not operate on negotiation timelines. They cannot be saved later. They can only be saved now.
Therefore, as we close the year, I’d like to reflect on three other developments from 2025 that stand out as signals of what’s possible and why I am optimistic about what we can achieve together in 2026.
New Equitable Earth Standard
2025 saw a crucial innovation to help REDD+ reach its potential, with the launch of Equitable Earth’s M002 – the new high-quality forest conservation standard created with and for Indigenous and traditional communities. Built on the Principles of Engagement developed through Indigenous-led work facilitated by Forest Trends, and the work of the Equitable Earth Coalition (which Everland was proud to co-sponsor in 2023), M002 came to market at COP30 under the governance of an independent, ICVCM-accredited standards organization, and was formally endorsed by the Cambodian government.
New Indigenous Amazon Outcome Bond initiative to unlock $1 billion for Indigenous-centered conservation of the Amazon rainforest
This year also saw us launch the Indigenous Amazon Outcome Bond initiative in partnership with BNP Paribas to provide the upfront capital to develop up to 20 new Indigenous-centered forest conservation projects in the greater Amazon. This money will be used to implement conservation activities that, if successful, will generate high-integrity carbon credits verified under Equitable Earth.
Everland has already secured Letters of Intent totaling $160 million from companies seeking to purchase these credits, which are projected to generate $1 billion in revenue over the projects’ first 10 years. Crucially, in what The Wall Street Journal labelled a “new iteration of REDD+,” Indigenous and traditional communities will directly receive the majority of this revenue to invest in their own self-determined goals. For all projects in Brazil, communities will receive at least 70% of all carbon credit revenue.
The Everland team is leading a process to identify projects for financing through the initiative. So far, 23 projects representing nearly 90,000 Indigenous and traditional community members across 17 million hectares of rainforest have applied. From these, we have identified the first group of five projects that will be presented to the market.
It is humbling that these communities are considering partnering with us. This is an honor that carries profound responsibility — one that became unmistakably clear for me during two gatherings Everland convened at COP30, including one at ALDEIA COP (the Indigenous Village and central hub for Indigenous participation at the UN summit).
At these gatherings, leaders from many of the communities shared their experiences and priorities, speaking candidly about the realities unfolding in their territories. They described violence inflicted against their peoples, land invasions, and rivers poisoned by illegal activity — setting out a pattern of harm that has unfolded over generations, often in the name of development to which they neither consent nor benefit.
What emerged was not only the scale of these transgressions, but the clarity of their response. Community leaders explained why controlling their own conservation projects — and receiving direct investment tied to those efforts — is essential. Not as charity, and not as compensation after the fact, but as a means of self-determined defense: to protect their peoples, safeguard their forests, and secure a future aligned with their values, knowledge systems, and responsibilities as stewards of the land.
Listening to these voices underscored how durable forest conservation is inseparable from justice, autonomy, and respect for Indigenous governance. Any model that fails to place communities at the center — with real authority, real participation, and direct access to capital — will ultimately fail the forests we are all trying to protect. We continue to work towards delivering that capital.
Only last week, we announced the appointment of Sylvera as the initiative’s independent assessment provider, to add another layer of independent evaluation that helps strengthen buyers’ confidence.
New ‘prospectus approach’ to trust and transparency
This same commitment to clarity and accountability, first articulated through The Forest Plan, shaped the design of Everland’s new website and Project Portal. The Forest Plan is our blueprint for ending deforestation. Our Project Portal is how we make that blueprint real, by holding forest conservation to the same standards of rigor, transparency, and accountability expected of large-scale investments. We approached this work with a simple but demanding question: what would it look like if investing in forest conservation were presented with the same discipline and credibility as any institutional-grade opportunity?
Institutional investors in more mature markets expect a prospectus that lays out structure, governance, risk, performance, and accountability in a way that enables informed participation. Through the Project Portal, we have applied that same discipline to forest conservation projects – to present the full architecture of these initiatives, including how projects are structured, governed, implemented, and monitored over time. Vitally, this information sits alongside the voices and perspectives of the Indigenous and traditional communities leading this work. Transparency here is not abstract. It is human, contextual, and continuous.
We know that transparency builds trust, and that trust has been the limiting factor in scaling high-integrity forest finance. Without it, investors hesitate and communities are left without the long-term, self-determined finance they need to secure their territories. But with trust, capital can move at the scale required to those protecting forests and biodiversity. This is why we will continue to expand both the depth and clarity of what we share, strengthening reporting, impact disclosure, and storytelling over the coming year. Always in service of our mission: to help people prosper from conserving their forests and wildlife, resulting in climate mitigation and biodiversity protection for the benefit of all.
As we pause for the holidays, I wish you a peaceful and restorative close to 2025. I look forward to reconnecting in 2026 as we continue this work together – advancing lasting climate impact, where forests stand and communities thrive.
Best regards,
Gerald Prolman,
Executive Chairman
Everland
INDEPENDENT NEWS IS IMPORTANT.
PLEASE GIVE WHAT YOU CAN: PayPal.Me/clevergreensolutions
Enjoy reading Eco Voice? Please help us by purchasing a GIFT Voucher or send one to a friend and encourage people to purchase trees or seeds via The Native Shop – www.nativeshop.com.au
Plants, seeds & more delivered to your door!