Giving Compass' Take:

• This story highlights the impact investing collaborative, Terra Silva, that will expand opportunities for commercial investment in sustainable forestry and agriculture by pioneering new investment models, accelerating their adoption, and helping build market infrastructure for climate-smart forestry.

• What can environmental funders do to help protect our world’s forests? Is catalytic philanthropy the right vehicle for your philanthropic goals? 

• Here’s why restoring forests is investable thanks to new tech and political urgency.

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and MacArthur today announced the launch of Terra Silva, a $90 million impact investing collaborative designed to respond to the challenges of global climate change. Terra Silva will make investments focused on the conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of critical tropical forests worldwide.

“Forests currently provide the only proven carbon-negative solution at scale,” said Susan Phinney Silver, Mission Investing Director at the Packard Foundation. “Given the urgency of climate change, we are committed to using mission investments in new ways to amplify and accelerate efforts like Terra Silva to reduce greenhouse gases as fast as possible.”

Terra Silva is launching at a pivotal time for sustainable forestry and related agriculture practices in the market. It will focus on three targets: accelerating reforestation, conservation, and afforestation in tropical forest regions; creating more environmentally and socially sustainable forest management practices at scale within critical tropical forests; and improving the sustainability of emerging climate-smart forestry and agriculture practices. In these ways, Terra Silva will mobilize private financing to conserve and restore tropical forests, promote biodiversity, and support thriving communities in and around critical tropical forests worldwide.

Read the full article about Terra Silva by the team at MacArthur Foundation.