The Power of Forests to Protect the Planet
On the 55th anniversary of Earth Day, Emergent brought together corporate, community, and climate leaders for a virtual event spotlighting the urgent need, and business opportunity, to protect tropical forests. As COP30 approaches in the Amazon, panelists from Walmart, Mastercard, and Ghana’s Asunafo-Asutifi jurisdiction explored how public-private partnerships and high-integrity forest finance can deliver measurable progress for people, nature, and the climate.
The session started with opening remarks from U.K Special Representative for Climate, Rachel Kyte who underscored the urgent need to protect and restore forests as a cornerstone of climate and biodiversity goals. She highlighted the growing momentum behind high-integrity forest carbon markets and the importance of partnerships like LEAF in unlocking finance for forest countries. With COP30 on the horizon, she called for accelerated corporate leadership and deeper collaboration with forest communities to drive meaningful action.
Catch up on the full recording of the session via the button on the right or read on for our 6 key takeouts:
1) Jurisdictional REDD+ is transforming community resilience and participation.
Community-led jurisdictional REDD+ (JREDD) programmes in Ghana are restoring both forest cover and the economic viability of sustainable cocoa farming. Local engagement and trust are key to their success. Daniel Amponsah, Chairman, Asunafo-Asutifi HIA Management Board highlighted his work in community participation and explained how farmers and communities are now rushing to join JREDD meetings as they see the benefits unfold for their community and livelihoods.
“We welcome all these private sector people as well as the NGOs and the civil society. They must all come on board and we are also happy to help, to give our best, to do our best.”
– Daniel Amponsah, Chairman, Asunafo-Asutifi HIA Management Board
2) Business relevance drives high-integrity climate action
Walmart currently invests in forest protection programs in the Asunafo-Asutifi region and the company aims to align forest investments with business priorities and local needs, ensuring each intervention is practical, community-supported, and measurable. Director of Sustainability for Forests & Nature at Walmart, Simon Hall explained how REDD+ allows finance to channel backo the communities working to protect forests.
“Now we have a mechanism to credit results and channel finance back in. So it’s kind of like this nice, positive reinforcing feedback loop.” – Simon Hall, Director, Sustainability – Forests & Nature, Walmart
3) Funds from forest protection offer new opportunities to support sustainable livelihoods
Mastercard shared how the Priceless Planet Coalition centers around Indigenous and community leadership, ensuring that restoration efforts address both ecological and social priorities, offering new financial opportunities to support sustainable livelihoods, particularly for women.
“It’s not just about planting trees for us—it’s really about restoring forests and ecosystems that thousands and thousands of local people rely on.”
– Erin Goodhand, Director of Sustainability, Mastercard
4) Private sector finance is essential, effective and can shift economic priorities
Corporate investment in forest programs is critical for enabling community capacity-building, reforestation, and climate-smart agriculture practices.
“We are distributing farmer inputs… from the REDD+ moneys that we got from World Bank, the carbon fund… They want to abide by the rules, they want to protect the forest because they have come to understand it.”
– Daniel Amponsah, Chairman, Asunafo-Asutifi HIA Management Board
5) Trusted partnerships create pathways to scale impact
Both corporate panelists on the call highlighted how long-term impact can only be possible through cross-sector collaboration. Selecting the right partners who understand local contexts is key to building lasting change.
“We're always, we work with many, many kinds of local organizations and implementers. And so we always ensure that they have really close ties to the community, or in many cases, it's the community doing the work themselves and really integrating kind of indigenous knowledge and leadership into the restoration decisions and the strategies that we're taking.” - Erin Goodhand, Director of Sustainability, Mastercard
6) Forests unite us—now is the time to act
Final takeaway messages from the panel clearly stated that protecting forests provides a shared purpose for climate action, uniting businesses and communities. The panel agreed that forest protection is not only essential to tackle climate change but can build business resilience, unite stakeholders in a common cause to protect nature and offers sustainable development opportunities to forest communities.
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REDD+ is a gamechanger for Ghana
Hear more from our panelist, Daniel Amponsah on how REDD+ Is a Game-Changer for Ghana | in an Opinion piece written for Newsweek alongside Nallice Afrakoma is member of Juaboso-Bia HIA Management Board and Divine Odonko is president of Volta and Oti Region Association of Beekeepers (VORAB).
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