Rainforest Action Network recognizes the immense stakes for people and the planet dependent on the outcome of the global negotiations underway at COP30, Nov 11-21 in Belem, Brazil. RAN’s forty year history of corporate campaigning has centered around the same main themes underpinning this year’s COP:
- The inextricable role of deforestation and finance in driving the climate crisis;
- The central importance of defending Indigenous land rights;
- The essential need for corporate accountability to keep forests standing and fossil fuels in the ground.
We are issuing several major reports and sending a top level delegation to attend the COP to participate in the process, both as delegates inside the UN Blue Zone as well as in the side events and street protests driven by grassroots movements occurring simultaneously outside of the official process.
If you are covering COP30 from Belem or afar, and wish to speak with or receive quotes from members of our team, we are available to offer updates, analysis and civil society responses to developments throughout the following weeks.
Important links to recent F&F and RAN publications:
- Banking on Biodiversity Collapse 2025: After Ten Years of Paper Promises, It’s Time to Regulate Finance
- Mining and Money: Financial Fault Lines in the Energy Transition
- Biodiversity Offsets And Credits: Frequently Asked Questions
- Regulating Finance For Biodiversity: an assessment for the Global Biodiversity Framework
Areas of issue expertise among this delegation:
- The central importance of addressing industrial deforestation and defending Indigenous land rights in all efforts to keep forests standing and address the climate crisis.
- The urgent need for structural finance reform and regulation.
- The failure of voluntary mechanisms to stem financial flows into destructive sectors.
- Implementation = accountability + regulation. Real implementation means stopping harmful finance flows from banks, investors and governments. No more voluntary pledges; urgent need for enforceable rules.
- Analysis of false solutions: this team has years of experience interpreting and assessing corporate-driven attempts to introduce half-measures and use greenwash to distract and delay from the need for fundamental changes to the status quo.
- Finance integrity, not new vehicles – TFFF and the roadmap will dominate headlines, but the real test is whether COP30 keeps public‑finance and accountability alive.
- Just transition includes the land sector – agriculture, forestry and mining transitions must be part of the JTWP, with communities and Indigenous Peoples shaping them.
- Why offsets are a sham. We oppose carbon and biodiversity markets outright. They distract, distort and deepen harm.
Available spokespeople in person in Belem:
Ginger Cassady, Executive Director, Rainforest Action Network
Ginger Cassady is the Executive Director of Rainforest Action Network. She has spent her career working at the intersection of environmental and social justice issues. She has over 20 years of experience securing transformational change with some of the world’s largest corporations and financiers through global campaigns and litigation to protect the environment and uphold human rights.
Leila Salazar Lopez, Executive Director, Amazon Watch, Board Member, Rainforest Action Network
Leila is Executive Director of Amazon Watch, leading the organization in its work to protect and defend the Amazon rainforest and climate in solidarity with Indigenous peoples.
For nearly 30 years Leila has worked to defend the world’s rainforests, human rights, and climate through international solidarity and advocacy campaigns at Amazon Watch, Global Exchange, and Rainforest Action Network, where she joined the Board of Directors in 2023. She is also a founding steering committee member of the Amazonia for Life: Protect 80% by 2025 Initiative, a Daughters for Earth Advisory Board Member, a Latin America Advisor for the Global Fund for Women, and a Greenpeace Voting Member.
Merel van der Mark, Forests & Finance Coalition Coordinator and RAN Senior Forest Campaigner
Merel is a senior forest campaigner with Rainforest Action Netowrk and the coordinator of the Forests & Finance Coalition, a coalition of NGOs that aim to prevent financial institutions from financing tropical deforestation and rights violations. Prior to these roles, she has lived in the Brazilian Amazon for more than 10 years, working with Greenpeace Amazon, among others, on cattle and soy campaigns.
Tom Picken, Forests & Finance Campaign Director with Rainforest Action Network
Tom Picken is the Campaign Director for Forests & Finance at Rainforest Action Network, where he works to challenge the financial sector’s role in driving environmental destruction and human rights abuses linked to resource extraction. Since 2005, Tom has supported investigations, advocacy, and coalition-building across environmental, human rights, and anti-corruption movements. He has previously held roles at Global Witness, Friends of the Earth, and Amnesty International.