Developing pathways for legal intervention to protect the world’s tropical forests.

Forests are a crucial nature-based solution that mitigate the impact of climate change. They preserve biodiversity, cultural identity, and livelihoods. To reduce deforestation, and protect communities dependant on forests, effective governance is required to demand accountability.

ClientEarth believes that it is necessary to urgently reverse forest destruction trends, utilising strategic and viable legal advocacy pathways. To do this, they have established a Forest Conservation Legal Defence Fund (FCLDF). The FCLDF will address global challenges to forest protection through high-profile, precedent-setting legal cases that will create ripple effects around the world.

In this project, The FCLDF will tackle global market challenges to forest protection by complementing the work of other organisations. This involves first focusing on the research produced by their partners, and data regarding harmful practices, supply chains linked to deforestation, and the market forces driving the destruction of tropical forests. The FCLDF hopes then to select the best strategies to address these patterns and to propose legal pathways to shift them.

The Swedish Postcode Foundation supports this project with SEK 4 000 000.

What the project delivers

Research and data mapping, identifying potential legal cases involving companies and investment companies that are linked to deforestation. The mapping work is carried out in collaboration with a number of other national and international environmental organizations, networks of investigative journalists, organizations with expertise in satellite surveillance, national and international lawexperts, as well as lawyers.

Why we support this project

As part of the Swedish Postcode Foundation’s commitment to improving protection of the environment, we are piloting a new way of approaching the increasing challenges of climate change and loss of biodiversity by launching the Tropical Forest Initiative. This project is part of that effort.