By Paulo Trevisani
BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group said Tuesday it raised $1.24 billion in commitments from global investors to restore depleted forest in Latin America, a sign that efforts to curb rising greenhouse-gas emissions remain in place despite policy backlash in the U.S., which has had ripple effects around the globe.
The closing of fund-raising by the Latin America Reforestation Strategy BTG TIG fund comes as global carbon-trading markets shrunk. Actions to mitigate climate change have fallen out of favor in some jurisdictions amid concerns over energy security.
Some of the world's most established carbon markets "are struggling to escalate climate action in the face of energy and geopolitical concerns," according to LSEG's Carbon Market Outlook 2026. Global carbon markets shrunk last year to a total value of 791 billion euros ($928.2 billion), the lowest since 2021, the report said.
Scientists say emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases warm up the planet, causing potentially disastrous climate changes. Upcoming regulatory changes under the Paris Agreement are expected to facilitate carbon trade worldwide later this year, part of a multilateral effort to mitigate global warming.
The push for a greener economy in past decades is still leading some corporations to reduce emissions or compensate for them by investing in nature-based carbon capture, regardless of shifting political winds.
"General progress has continued," said Mark Wishnie, chief sustainability officer at BTG TIG. "These are very long-term commitments, and the shifts in sort of policy and politics in one place or another, particularly for companies or investors that have global footprints, those long-term plans have to take some of that volatility in policy environments into account."
The Atlanta timberland investment firm said the commitments mean its Latin American Reforestation Strategy is now the largest reforestation fund yet created. It aims to buy previously deforested land and cover them with trees to suck up greenhouse gases and profit from carbon credits and timber. Environmental organization Conservation International advises the fund.
The BTG Pactual TIG-Conservation International strategy seeks to conserve, restore and reforest about 660,000 acres of degraded land, an area more than twice the size of New York City. It is focused in the Latin America region.
Investors include companies, investment funds and multilateral organizations from various countries, BTG TIG said. The list includes the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, German development finance institution DEG, the Netherlands's entrepreneurial development bank FMO, decarbonisation investment platform GenZero, the International Finance Corp., Japanese shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Brazilian miner Vale, among others. Some investors asked to remain anonymous, Wishnie said.
Microsoft was an early investor in the fund, when it bought 8 million tons of carbon offsets in 2024 to be delivered over time. The initiative already has 50,000 acres under restoration, BTG TIG said.
The investment is so far concentrated in central Brazil's Cerrado biome, a major producer of grains and cattle where deforestation has been rampant. It is also present in Uruguay.
The BTG TIG project began planting trees in 2023 and some of them are already over 30-foot tall, Wishnie said.
"We are focused in parts of the world where trees grow incredibly fast," he said, adding that carbon offsets are already being generated, but timber harvesting won't happen until the trees are at least 15 years old.
Write to Paulo Trevisani at paulo.trevisani@wsj.com