USAID freeze is a massive setback for forests
The protection of tropical forests and Indigenous peoples' rights are under renewed threat following the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID.
RAINFOREST: From a local community forest monitoring training project in the DRC, 2020. Many rainforest protection projects are put on hold following the USAID funding freeze. Rainforest Foundation Norway continues to support all country programs unchanged. Photo: Alexis Huguet/Rainforest Foundation Norway
Oslo, 10 February 2025
Civil society organizations across the tropics are seeing the first consequences of the USAID freeze of funds announced by the Trump administration.
“Our partners report that the shutdown of USAID projects will have real consequences for forest protection and the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. This comes at a time when several tropical forests are on the brink of collapse. Finding alternative funding is a race against time,” Tana Lala-Pritchard, International Program Director at Rainforest Foundation Norway, said.
In Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and DRC, countries housing the world's three largest contiguous rainforests, civil society organizations working to protect the world's largest remaining rainforests report that many projects are put on hold, and several organizations have started to lay off staff. Experienced USAID staff, with in-depth local knowledge, are being called back to the US. In sum, it has sweeping consequences for the whole forest and human rights sector in tropical rainforest countries.
“Time is running out, and our forests are disappearing. We have lost about 700,000 km2, a rainforest area the size of Texas, over the past 20 years. Now is not the time to back down. It is time to double down,”
Tana Lala-Pritchard, International Program Director at Rainforest Foundation Norway
Vulnerable rainforest populations at increased risk
In Peru, protection programs for threatened indigenous leaders are frozen. The same is true for alternative development programs to the coca crops, which drive deforestation and contribute to illegalities. The combination poses a high risk for indigenous peoples and forests due to the likely expansion of drug trafficking and the illegal activities associated with it, as well as the criminal organizations running these illegal activities.
“When the largest global donor cuts its funds overnight, it has broad, dangerous and complex consequences. While accusations of corruption and misuse of funds have been quoted as a justification for the freeze, one of the immediate impacts is actually a paralysis of the very instruments and safeguards that are essential to prevent corruption and the support to legal reforms needed to protect vulnerable rainforest populations from crime", Lala-Pritchard said.
In Brazil, the USAID funding freeze is felt as part of decreasing
support globally, and several of Rainforest Foundation Norway’s partners are worried about speaking publicly on the issue out of fear of being targeted.
Rainforest Foundation Norway continues to support all country programs unchanged.
DESTROYED: Rainforest consumed by fire in the Brazilian Amazon, 2022. Photo: Edmar Barros
Rainforest area the size of Texas lost
“Time is running out, and our forests are disappearing. We have lost about 700,000 km2, a rainforest area the size of Texas, over the past 20 years. Now is not the time to back down. It is time to double down,” Lala-Pritchard said.
She is, however, inspired by the global movement of people coming together to protect fundamental rights in the face of recent attempts to dismantle them:
“We call on the international community to not lose sight of the catastrophic consequences of deprioritizing climate and biodiversity action and quickly step in and step up to fill the significant funding gap for tropical forest protection created by the Trump administration . If not, the consequences will be devastating for all of us, including Indigenous Peoples and local communities who protect the rainforests. Their livelihoods depend on these important ecosystems, and we risk falling short of saving one of the most life-critical global common goods,” warns Tana Lala-Pritchard, Program Director at Rainforest Foundation Norway.
For more information, contact:
Kristin Rødland Buick
Senior Adviser, International Communications
+(47) 456 56 277
kristin@rainforest.no