Financing Biodiversity

Valuation and mobilisation of financial resources for biodiversity conservation

Although our prosperity and a huge number of our economic activities depend directly or indirectly on biodiversity and its ecosystems, their value is currently unappreciated and inappropriately accounted for by economic or political decision-making. Above all, the many services that nature provides to us appear limitless and seemingly ‘free of charge’ (at least to date). According to the Nature Conservancy, the global funding gap for biodiversity averages US$711 billion per year. Public funding alone is not enough to close this gap; in particular, the private sector needs to become much more involved.  Financing biodiversity is therefore a key issue for achieving the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

IKI approaches to financing biodiversity

The International Climate Initiative (IKI) uses a broad and varied spectrum of approaches to help its partner countries valuate and mobilise resources for the conservation of diversity: these approaches include the marketing of products that are biodiversity-friendly, the integration of biodiversity into the private and financial sectors as well as the promotion of ecotourism.

Since 2012, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV), has partnered with the European Commission, the region of Flanders, Norway, Switzerland, France and Canada to support the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN). BIOFIN is a global partnership that is headed by UNDP and is currently present in over 40 countries. The goal of the initiative is to improve the general conditions for biodiversity financing in its partner countries.

Most nations do not have access to reliable figures about the actual cost of implementing their biodiversity strategies or are also unaware of the sources from which they might procure such funding and of how to then implement their strategies. BIOFIN aims to provide partner countries with support for closing these gaps. In a second phase, financing solutions are then developed and implemented. Furthermore BIOFIN also supports its partner countries in mitigating the negative impacts of the Covid-19-crisis on the biological diversity while contributing to sustainable economic recovery.

The Convention on Biological Diversity

UN Development Programme

Website BIOFIN

Conservation of biological diversity ...