Avoided Deforestation Partners - About Us

About Us

picture of burning forestAvoided Deforestation Partners is an international network of thinkers, strategists and practitioners, founded by leaders in forest carbon policy and project implementation, science, finance, and conservation in 2007, to support international efforts to halt tropical deforestation.

Vision Statement

The adoption of effective climate policies to significantly reduce tropical deforestation and degradation, improving the quality of life for indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities, preserving biodiversity, and enhancing global security.

Mission Statement

Avoided Deforestation Partners is dedicated to advancing U.S. and international climate policies along with business solutions that include robust incentives to protect tropical forests. AD Partners convenes public and private sector leaders to inspire decision makers to implement strategies that reduce deforestation.

We strive to achieve our mission by:

  1. Creating links among public, private and civil society sectors to promote the latest thinking and best practices that support avoided deforestation policies and private sector initiatives.
  2. Catalyzing new thinking about policies and private sector initiatives to address deforestation, including commissioning research and organizing workshops.
  3. Convening policy forums and business leadership discussions that facilitate the involvement of local, regional, national and international players to promote holistic solutions that reduce deforestation and land degradation.
  4. Raising the profile of the deforestation issue and the potential support role of the business community by hosting events, publishing mainstream media articles, and organizing and participating in conferences and public hearings.
  5. Building connections among global organizations to encourage collaboration, coordination and financial support for international efforts to reduce deforestation.

Our Approach

Avoided Deforestation Partners brings together key voices in the tropical deforestation solutions discussion including NGOs, business leaders, governments, scientists and representatives of forest communities. Our goal is to help advance both private and public initiatives that will effectively protect the world's remaining tropical forests and thereby significantly reduce carbon emissions.

We believe that dramatic reductions in deforestation can be achieved in developing countries by:

  1. Advancing environmental effectiveness and integrity. Policy and business leadership initiatives must result in real and verifiable reductions in deforestation, which in turn will also decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
  2. Leverage private sector funding.Given the scale of the problem and significant amount of funding needed to meaningfully reduce emissions from deforestation, Avoided Deforestation Partners recognizes that private sector engagement is crucial to provide the necessary transformation.
  3. Use of market and non-market mechanisms.The carbon market can be an efficient policy instrument for engaging the private sector and effectively reducing global emissions cost. The use of effective market mechanisms should therefore be encouraged. We also support the use of non-market mechanisms which can, among other things, provide additional incentives and help build capacity in developing countries to reduce deforestation.
  4. Promoting sustainable business practices. Given the hurdles of top-down policy making, AD Partners strongly advocates the role of the business community in calling for a re-examination of their supply chains as they pertain to reducing deforestation.
  5. Consider practicality. Policies and business practices to reduce emissions from deforestation must be practical. They must create workable incentives for governments, NGOs, indigenous groups and the private sector to become engaged and effectively protect forests over the long term.
  6. Respect indigenous people.The rights of indigenous peoples and other forest dependent communities must be respected. These groups should be engaged, and should also be the principal beneficiaries of financial incentives to reduce deforestation.