Everland Launches HALO Forest Finance Facility to Close Funding Gap for Amazon Communities; Former GEF Chief Carlos Manuel Rodríguez to Chair
Carlos Manuel Rodríguez
New York, 5 June 2026 – On World Environment Day, conservation organization Everland announced the launch of the HALO (Holistic Alignment for Lasting Outcomes) Facility, a new financing initiative designed to combat one of the biggest challenges facing community-led forest conservation projects: access to early-stage and continuity capital. The initiative was created to help these projects establish strong foundations and advance toward investment readiness.
Leading the charge for HALO is Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, the former CEO and Chair of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and former Minister of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica, who will serve as the Facility’s inaugural Chair. Rodríguez, a recognized global authority on conservation finance, will oversee HALO’s strategic development, governance, and fundraising.
HALO was created to address a consistent challenge identified across the sector: while institutional capital is increasingly interested in community-led forest conservation, many high-potential projects require catalytic and bridge funding to complete fundamental development activities before they can qualify for larger institutional investment. By providing this critical early-stage financing, HALO aims to mitigate risk and unlock access to larger financing sources, generating long-term revenue for communities.
The Facility has roots in the Indigenous Amazon Outcome Bond initiative, which seeks to mobilize institutional capital for community-led projects under Equitable Earth, a carbon standard tailored to meet the priorities of Indigenous and traditional forest communities.
Currently, 23 projects—representing nearly 90,000 community members across 17 million hectares of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru—have stepped forward to participate.
“Durable conservation is most likely to be achieved when communities are at the center,” said Carlos Manuel Rodríguez. He noted that REDD+ projects have proven to be an effective way to channel private finance toward forest communities, but too often, “promising projects fail because they lack access to the right capital at the right time”. Rodríguez added that HALO was created to overcome this, with the goal of “help[ing] create the conditions for communities to build sovereign wealth while safeguarding millions of hectares of threatened rainforest”.
Puyr Tembé, a community leader from the Tembé people and former Indigenous Secretary of the State of Pará, reinforced the urgency of direct funding. Tembé emphasized that Indigenous Peoples are on the frontlines of forest protection, confronting threats like deforestation and illegal mining. “The challenge is that those who profit from the destruction of the forest continue to have greater access to financial resources than those who dedicate their lives to protecting it,” she stated. Tembé advocated for investing in Indigenous Peoples as a means of “investing in real solutions for the future of our planet”.
HALO, which has an initial ambition of $50 million, is currently seeking partners from the philanthropic, public, and private sectors to support its capitalization. Everland, the organization launching the facility, is a conservation business that represents one of the world’s largest portfolios of community-centered forest conservation projects.
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