USAID helps partner countries conserve, manage, and restore forests and other lands to combat climate change while improving livelihoods and resilience. USAID works with communities, businesses, and governments across entire landscapes to have impact at scale. USAID is a founding member of the U.S. One Trillion Trees Interagency Council and sits on the 1t.org U.S. Stakeholder Council.

In April 2022, USAID launched a new Climate Strategy to guide the Agency’s work to tackle the climate crisis through 2030—the decisive decade for climate action. As part of that Strategy, USAID announced six high-level targets for our work through 2030, including:

• Natural and Managed Ecosystems: USAID will support the conservation, restoration, or management of 100 million hectares with a climate mitigation benefit. That’s an area more than twice the size of California.

At COP27 in Egypt, in furtherance of USAID’s partnership with 1t.org, USAID joined the 1t.org US Chapter and reiterated its commitment to partnering with public, private, and civil society organizations including 1t.org to meet that 100 million hectare target.

In implementing this target, USAID is working in the most carbon-rich landscapes—like the tropical rainforests of the Amazon, Congo, and Southeast Asia. USAID’s pledge to 1t.org builds on the Agency’s history of highly impactful partnerships in the natural climate solutions space. From 2017-2022, USAID’s conservation work mobilized over $1 billion in public and private investment and reduced over 450 million tons of CO2 emissions—equal to taking 100 million cars off the road for a year.

In achieving this pledge, USAID will support partner countries to:

• Conserve key ecosystems like forests, peatlands, and mangroves. This includes tackling the drivers of deforestation, securing land rights for Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and creating economic incentives for protecting carbon-dense forests.
• Manage working lands. Land uses such as agroforestry, livestock, rice, and sustainable timber production have high potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, store carbon, or reduce pressure on intact forests. We also work to reduce food loss and waste.
• Restore native ecosystems. This includes working with governments, private sector, civil society, and key groups like women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities to rehabilitate tropical forests, mangroves, and peatlands.