Pedro Moura Costa joins Forest Trends Fellows Program

We are pleased to announce that Pedro Moura Costa has joined the Forest Trends Fellows Program.

Together with partners around the world, Forest Trends pioneers innovative finance for conservation, promoting healthy forests, sustainable agriculture, clean water, robust climate action, biodiverse landscapes, and strong communities. 

For over 30 years Pedro has been involved in all aspects of climate policy, carbon finance, and GHG mitigation projects, and through the Fellows Program will help Forest Trends deliver its mission to build an economic engine behind conservation. 

“Forest Trends is excited to welcome Pedro to our Fellows program, an extraordinary group of change-makers and visionaries who help us stay on the cutting edge of environmental markets and conservation. His global experience in climate policy, carbon finance, greenhouse gas mitigation projects, and entrepreneurial track record will be an asset to both our organizational strategies and initiative-specific research. His experience with climate policy in Brazil is particularly helpful to our work there as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reprioritizes environmental protection and indigenous rights.” Michael Jenkins, Founding President and CEO, Forest Trends.

“It’s never been so important to find innovative ways to fund and protect forests, both for their ecological and climatic role. Having been involved in designing the new Tropical Forests Forever concept, a collaboration with Forest Trends will be important in promoting this initiative further. I’m thrilled to be joining this program now, and looking forward to working alongside the wealth of talent and expertise within this group.” Pedro Moura Costa.

Share the Post:

Related Posts

Eligibility Criteria for Cerrado Programme 1

The following eligibility criteria are required for participation in the Responsible Commodities Facility for Cerrado Programme 1 (see full description here):

Land use

The area of cultivation must not have had any deforestation and conversion of native vegetation since 1 Jan 2020*. Preference will be given to areas converted from abandoned pasture land to soy cultivation after 2008.

Forest Code Compliance

Farm land must be registered with the Cadastro Ambiental Rural (CAR). The farm must contain and maintain areas of native vegetation equivalent to those required for Legal Reserve and Areas of Permanent Protection (APPs) determined by the Forest code or have formally adhered to a Programme of Environmental Regularization (PRA) established by the state environmental agency**. The farm area must not overlap with public protected areas, indigenous lands and other traditional people and community lands (including ‘quilombolas territories’).

Land title

Farmers must have unquestionable right to use the land, be it as land title, land lease agreement, or another legally recognised form of land tenure (e.g., ‘posse’)

Legal Compliance

Farmers must demonstrate that they and their farms do not contravene any environmental or legal requirements, such as embargoes, environmental irregularities, contraventions of the labour legislation (including slave and child labour), non-compliance with the Soy Moratorium (if applicable), and internationally-accepted rules for the use of agrochemicals.

*Farmers occasionally request the conversion of small areas of native vegetation to conduct farm improvements (building storage areas, water reservoirs, etc.). Provided that these areas are small and not for the purpose of expansion of the agricultural area, RCF analyses and considers them eligible. In order to do so, RCF uses the concept of Minimal Level (of deforestation or conversion) as defined by the Accountability Framework Initiative Terms and Definitions, which states “To be considered consistent with no-deforestation or no-conversion commitments, minimal levels must generally meet the following conditions: Not exceed cumulative thresholds that are small both in absolute terms (e.g., no more than a few hectares) and relative to the area in question (e.g., no more than a small proportion of the site).”

**The RCF analyses Forest Code compliance by looking at single farms (defined as the area covered by a CAR) or bundles of individual CARs that, in combination, result in the desired area of native vegetation put under the protective status of the RCF.  This bundling should not be understood as a means of compliance with the Forest Code requirements and is not intended to release the farmer of the regularization process committed under the Forest Code rules (enrolment in the CAR, engagement in a PRA, etc.). In order to differentiate its metrics from those of the Forest Code, the RCF refers to areas of Excess Native Vegetation (ENV) as opposed to Excess Legal Reserve, to avoid confusion with areas legally categorised under the Forest Code.