A promising beginning to the 2016 Tropical Landscapes Finance project in Indonesia, which is all set to save 400,000 hectares of tropical forest, that is home to Orangutan and thousands of endangered species, has given a major boost to the belief that the current climate crisis could be reined in with innovative business and people engagement models.
Mr. Tripathi, a former Assistant Secretary General at UN Environment Program, as Executive Secretary of the US$ 1 Billion Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility (TLFF) helped establish with UNEP, ICRAF, BNP Paribas and ADM Capital as founding partners – to leverage ‘private finance for public good’ and achieve transformative social and environmental impact in Indonesia. The project was able to raise US$ 90 million recently from investors in Singapore at attractive rates.
Apart from finance, the project leaders believe working with 50,000 people in the region is key to the success of the project. Mr. Tripathi strongly believes that “No environmental project can succeed only by involving a few corporates or governments, it has to be for the people and with the people.” Working with people include providing tools for local communities to work with government to protect their village forests and assisting them to develop forest-friendly livelihoods such as sustainable agriculture and sale of forest products like honey.
The success of the project in Indonesia is key to stabilizing rainfall patterns in the whole of Southeast and South Asia. Tripathi’s Global Alliance for a Sustainable Planet is seeking out projects that can make massive impact with a mix of private and institutional capital.
The tropical rainforests of Indonesian Borneo—the third-largest island in the world—straddle the equator in Southeast Asia and are home to an incredible diversity of plants and animals. Among them is the orangutan. More than three-quarters of the world’s orangutans rely on the bounty of these lush rainforests for survival. Their name even comes from the Indonesian words orang and hutan, meaning “person of the forest.” The rainforests of Indonesian Borneo are the orangutans’ forests. Save Orangutan, save humanity!
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