A new alliance to secure the future of forests and ensure they thrive

A perfect storm has hit Earth’s forests. Home to 80% of terrestrial biodiversity, our forest landscapes are straining under a new normal of +1.5 °C temperatures. Forests are increasingly vulnerable to disease, fire, floods, thaw and pollution – affecting communities, countries and our collective future prosperity.

Forest investors are navigating new levels of complexity from the degradation of carbon sinks, carbon market failures, artificial intelligence-led disinformation, constrained funding and continued deforestation. We are witnessing wildfire superseding agriculture as the leading cause of tropical deforestation.

Today in Davos, we launch the Forest Future Alliance (FFA). Housed within the World Economic Forum, the FFA supports private sector and philanthropy investors on their journey navigating complexity and in support of responsible conservation, restoration and stewardship of forests – the lungs and heart of our planet.

Human lives and livelihoods are at the core of healthy, resilient and abundant forest landscapes. We are part of nature, and it is time we remember it. Remembering this truth is practical, not philosophical.

When we treat forests as living systems rather than extractive assets, decision-making shifts from short-term optimization to long-term stewardship – strengthening resilience for both ecosystems and the societies that depend on them.

Six years ago, we launched 1t.org to support the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. We put out an ambitious call to the global forest movement to conserve restore and grow a trillion trees by 2030.

The response was historic. We mobilized 93 companies to support the conservation and restoration of over nine billion trees and secured commitments from governments including China, the US and India covering more than 70 billion more.

To propel a next era of forest action, the Forest Future Alliance encourages socially, economically and ecologically responsible investment decisions by private sector and philanthropic actors.

Stewardship requires more than capital; it depends on coherence across values, incentives and governance, with investment horizons aligned to ecological timeframes and local communities recognised as custodians and co-creators of long-term value.

We are going beyond numeric commitments to offering agile support to our community through learning journeys on emerging and priority thematics, like wildfire prevention and management, and supporting the case for investment in forest conservation, restoration and stewardship in large-scale critical forest landscapes.

As the global threat of wildfire grows, forest stewardship is critical to secure community and economic resilience. Reactive responses are no longer sufficient; prevention and preparedness require systems thinking that integrates land use, livelihoods, ecological health and long-term capital – where leadership and governance matter as much as technology and finance.

It is also a cost-effective risk management strategy. Wildfires burned more than 100 million hectares in 2025 alone, disrupting supply chains, affecting local communities and undermining national budgets. Yet, our wildfire response is still reactive.

Through our Global Wildfire Leadership Network, we are encouraging greater agility and investment in pre-disaster prevention to safeguard communities and ecosystems from wildfire loss and damage.

Also in Davos, we launch From Wildfire Risk to Resilience: The Investment Case for Action, outlining the case for investment and showcasing compelling illustrations of what is possible from across the globe.

Critical forest landscapes face an investment paradox: despite their planetary importance, many lack the conditions to attract capital. Resolving this requires patient capital, trusted intermediaries, an enabling policy environment and place-based approaches rooted in local ecology, culture and social trust.

The Forest Future Alliance supports a selection of these large-scale landscapes by fostering that enabling environment for investment where political will exists, or profiling opportunities that are already investible where funding is the primary constraint.

For example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, FFA is supporting the Kivu-Kinshasa Green Corridor. Spanning 540,000 km², including 108,000 km² of primary forest, the corridor holds the potential to protect primary rainforests while fostering the local bioeconomy and sustainable community development.

The Forest Future team is showcasing this opportunity, initiating coalition building and co-development of the investment narrative and engaging new corporate partners in support of this ambitious work – that is looking to bring peace and stability to the region.

The economic logic for investment in forest landscapes is clear. Forests offer nature-based risk management to reduce the impact of physical climate hazards – that protect cities, citizens and industries.

They regulate hydrological cycles, reduce floods, prevent landslides, moderate microclimates in cities and, in the case of mangroves, shield coastal infrastructure from storm surges and tsunamis.

A dynamic bioeconomy offers compelling investment returns. Sustainable forest products like shea, neem and baobab are growing, and benefit from intact and diverse forest landscapes.

As global demand for sustainable paper, natural packaging, green construction materials and bioplastics grows, a long-term transition toward more responsible stewardship of forests is also underway.

As climate hazards worsen, forest investments pay dividends back to the private sector too. Healthy forests offer supply chain resilience – particularly to companies with large land footprints. They are high-integrity carbon stores – but only where forests can be maintained intact and healthy.

However, keeping forests standing is currently undervalued. In many regions, the public goods provided by forest landscapes are mispriced. Forests appear more profitable when cleared for cattle, soy or timber than when kept as intact. Yet the benefits they provide in regulating climates, storing carbon and supporting local lives and livelihoods are profound.

The financial mainstream is starting to recognize the real value of forests, which can lead to new mechanisms that reward conservation over conversion, and restoration over degradation. For instance, the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) provides the potential for reliable long-term finance to keep forests standing.

The future of forests – and of our economies – depends on whether we choose stewardship over extraction. Forests are not externalities to be managed, but living systems that show how economies can flourish within planetary boundaries.

When capital, governance, and leadership serve life, regeneration becomes a durable economic reality. The Forest Future Alliance offers a shared opportunity to make this shift with humility, patience, and long-term commitment.

Our thriving is contingent on the health, resilience and abundance of forest landscapes worldwide.

The Forest Future Alliance harnesses the World Economic Forum’s unique convening capabilities to address complex and often intractable problems.

We invite leaders from the private sector and philanthropy to join the Alliance and to collaborate with the public sector and civil society organizations.

Building on the lessons of 1t.org, it is time to reorient, collaborate, and jointly build a future where forests and the communities that depend on them thrive.