A century ago, an estimated 230,000 orangutans, or “forest persons” in Indonesian, roamed the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. Today, only a quarter of that population remains, and the species is listed by IUCN as Critically Endangered. Why? The destruction of the orangutans’ habitat over the past hundred years has been the main driver. The same tropical forests where orangutans live are valuable for the myriad other animal and plant species that they contain, while also providing people with vital ecosystem services: clean air, pure water, and carbon storage. Indonesia has recently worked hard to slow forest loss, and the efforts of the Climate Investment Funds’ (CIF) Forest Investment Program (FIP) have supported this process.
Since 2008, the FIP program has invested in preserving forests as a means of combatting climate change by enhancing carbon stocks in Indonesia and 22 other countries. The FIP investment to date of USD 568 million has mobilized co-financing of USD 1.017 billion from public and private sources. The climate benefits generated through this investment are well documented and include reduction of a cumulative 27.7 million tCO2 eq emissions so far.
At the inception of FIP, better livelihoods for forest-dependent Indigenous peoples and communities and enhanced biodiversity were identified as the primary co-benefits to be derived from the investments. Biodiversity impacts, which generally go hand in hand with improved forest protection and management, have been unequally measured throughout the life of the program. In a dedicated evidence synthesis published in tandem with the CIF’s annual report, our monitoring and reporting experts took stock of data from 21 projects in eight countries to better understand documented FIP biodiversity co-benefits. This deep dive identifies three ways in which the CIF program reported enhancing biodiversity conservation in support of both people and planet.
Restoring native vegetation
The first of these is that many FIP-funded projects focus on restoring native vegetation, primarily through Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR). These projects have restored a total of 193,000 hectares (ha) of ANR, including 6,000 ha in Indonesia. There, 30 community groups re-established protected forests and tracked the status of native flora and fauna, reporting that 15 species of flora—including four endangered and four vulnerable—were restored to an “abundant” status. Over 20 species of fauna, including the vulnerable flying lemur and the charismatic Bornean orangutan, have been recorded as populating these newly restored areas that now benefit from enhanced protection. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the most biologically diverse country in Africa, 172,000 ha of forest under ANR are again home to antelopes, squirrels, and cane rats, with communities reporting improved air quality and rainfall.
Brazil’s Cerrado region spans an area almost as big as all of Mexico and is both an agricultural powerhouse and home to the world's most biodiverse savanna. In this unique and vulnerable biome, FIP funded a game-changing program to bolster land use planning and protection. The Rural Environmental Register records rural areas with protections benefiting biodiversity, for example with native vegetation, and identifies connectivity corridors between biospheres. A staggering 126 million ha, or 35 percent of the landholding area, have now been registered as permanent preservation areas or legal reserves.
Countering threats to biodiversity
Biodiversity found in forests is losing ground because of wildlife poaching and trading, human encroachment and degradation, and the uncontrolled spread of fires. To address these issues, FIP-funded programs promote institutionalization and institutional effectiveness. Across FIP projects, 127,500,000 ha were declared as protected to support biodiversity, and 219,000 ha received enhanced protection from patrols and other measures.
For example, in Mozambique and Côte d’Ivoire, the strengthening of forest law enforcement has accelerated ecosystem protections, preventing illegal logging, mining, and poaching. Biodiversity conservation actions in Côte d’Ivoire also include wire fencing to prevent encroachment, gold panning, and human-wildlife conflicts, including clashes between people and iconic forest elephants.
Most importantly, behavior change and community action at the local level have been implemented to sustain forest protection. For example, in Lao PDR, the deployment of an ‘Operational Logging and Forest Degradation Monitoring System’ within the provincial and district agriculture and forestry offices resulted in the organization and training of 17 village patrol teams. These units act as extension agents in the reduction of environmental crimes related to forest destruction, forest degradation, and wildlife poaching over an expanded coverage area of 80,000 ha. In Indonesia, ‘Community Forest Fire Brigades’ in Borneo’s Danau Sentarum National Park have expanded their reach well beyond the project’s borders. Currently, the brigades protect forest tracts equivalent to 350 percent of the intervention’s target region, covering a total of 430,000 ha.
Promoting sustainable agroforestry and silvopastoral systems
FIP funded activities are estimated to have brought 215,000 ha under agroforestry or silvopastoral systems, supporting improved livelihoods and delivering biodiversity benefits. By growing forest trees with food crops, these systems introduce diverse plant species, enhance soil fertility, and help wildlife thrive. In Ghana, one of the world’s top cocoa producing countries, FIP supported the provision of seedlings and farmer training for yield-increasing agroforestry on 80,000 ha. In Indonesia, 6,800 community members saw their income rise as a result of reforestation via agroforestry. There, forest tree species were introduced alongside rubber and fruit trees, coffee, vegetables and food crops.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 23,800 ha of agroforests were targeted to increase agricultural productivity, encouraging communities to stay put on existing farms. There, acacia plantations, established on 3,700 ha, proved to be game changers, transforming savannas into forests, and supporting roving antelopes.
These results and learnings from 15 years of the Forest Investment Program are now nurturing the design of investment plans as part of CIF’s Nature, People and Climate (NPC) program. With NPC, we hope to better measure, evaluate and accelerate biodiversity co-benefits. As the global community celebrates this first International Day for Biological Diversity under the historic Kunming-Montreal Framework, and after COP27 officially affirmed the importance of nature-based solutions to the climate crisis, this May 22, 2023 marks a true opportunity to bridge the gap for nature finance.
From agreement to action, let’s build back biodiversity together.