Jakarta. Indonesia has pledged to contribute a sum of money in Brazil-led $125 billion global forestry fund, a promise that President Prabowo Subianto made when hosting his Brazilian counterpart Lula da Silva on Thursday.

Lula is currently in Jakarta on a three-day trip, with his last visit to Southeast Asia’s biggest economy dating back to 2008. 

Brazil has been pitching to the world the so-called Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which will offer countries financial incentives to halt deforestation.

Lula intends to launch this multi-billion-dollar fund at the UN climate meeting COP30 in Belem on Nov. 6-21, a meeting that Prabowo will be skipping. Despite Prabowo’s absence, Indonesia -- home to a huge chunk of tropical forests -- has promised to financially back the fund. He alluded that Indonesia would contribute the same amount as Brazil, which had recently committed to put around $1 billion in the initiative.

“Brazil has established an investment fund that aims to conserve tropical forests. Brazil pioneered this movement, and we support it. We will commit whatever amount Brazil has invested [in TFFF]. Indonesia will invest there,” Prabowo told the joint news conference.

Prabowo apologized for not being able to come to the COP30, but said he would send a “strong delegation” instead to endorse Brazil’s initiatives. 

The TFFF aims to set up a $125 billion global investment fund to provide tropical countries with permanent income in exchange for protecting their forests. Some $25 billion is expected to come from sovereign investments. The fund intends to collect the remaining $100 billion from private capital. TFFF seeks to reserve 20 percent of the payments made to the tropical countries for the indigenous communities. 

As of end September, five other tropical forest nations besides Brazil had already joined the TFFF, namely Colombia, Ghana, Congo, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Germany, the United Arab Emirates, France, Norway, and the UK are some potential investors. The World Bank has agreed to become the fund’s trustee which will be in charge of transferring the money to the tropical forest countries. TFFF will allocate the capital to a diversified portfolio of long-term, investment-grade fixed-income assets managed by international fund managers.

Indonesia has 126.7 million hectares of tropical forests, according to the government’s estimates. 

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