Farmers for Forests (F4F) is committed to increasing and protecting India’s biodiverse forest cover in close collaboration with communities. Their 2030 impact goals are to sequester 25 million tonnes of CO2 per year, equivalent to the emissions of 8+ million Indians annually. F4F operating model designed to produce these outcomes include afforestation activities to increase forest cover in India, preventing new deforestation by working with farmers to protect biodiversity, developing environmental stewardship by encouraging increased participation of local communities and farmers in environmental protection efforts, and building a knowledge base on ecosystem services for this model to proliferate. Underlying this entire model is a payments for ecosystem services component that reward farmers and local communities for meeting afforestation and protection targets that help long build long-term climate resilience and sequester carbon.

What excites us about their work:

• Innovative model of payments for ecosystem services that is new to India and growing in other parts of the model
• Strong anchoring in the local community and working with environmental stewards from agricultural and forest communities to protect forests
• Helps achieve dual goals of local climate resilience and biodiversity improvements as well as national level carbon commitments