‘A game changer that will help safeguard humanity’: Philanthropies pledge record $5bn for nature protection
Bezos Earth Fund, Nia Tero, Bloomberg Philanthropies and Wyss Foundation among the nine philanthropic organisations behind record private funding announcement
Nine philanthropic organisations have collectively pledged to provide $5bn for projects that advance progress towards a goal of protecting 30 per cent of land and ocean by 2030, in a donation that has been touted as the largest-ever private funding commitment for biodiversity.
The funding announcement was unveiled at a UN General Assembly side event on Wednesday morning designed to demonstrate support for the so-called ’30 by 30′ nature protection goal ahead of next month’s COP15 UN Biodiversity Summit, where world leaders are set to try and thrash out the terms of a global treaty to tackle biodiversity loss.
More than 70 countries have now committed to a goal of protecting 30 per cent of land and sea for nature as part of the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People initiative led by Costa Rica, France and the UK.
And, together forming the ‘Protecting Our Planet Challenge’, the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Rob and Melani Walton Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Nia Tero, and Arcadia, Re:Wild, Wyss Foundation and Rainforest Trust have collectively pledged to provide billions of dollars of investment over the next 10 years towards the goal, by strengthening and expanding protected areas and supporting Indigenous stewardship of traditional territories.
The $5bn donation is the “largest private funding commitment ever to biodiversity conservation”, the organisations claim. They said protected areas were one the most cost-effective ways to safeguard nature, climate and vulnerable human populations, provided they are well-managed and respected the rights and needs of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, emphasised that governments, corporations, philanthropies and NGOs had a “collective role to play” in reversing nature’s decline. “By prioritising the voices of Indigenous peoples and frontline communities, protecting our most delicate and vital natural resources, and creating more equitable access to nature for all, we will ultimately help humanity and every living species on our planet thrive,” he said.
Meanwhile, Antha Williams, global head of climate and environment programmes at Bloomberg Philanthropies, said that acction to protect nature was “a scientific and moral necessity” for tackling climate change and biodiversity loss.
“We need increased political leadership and funding to slow the alarming loss of coral reefs, mangroves, and other ecosystems critical to mitigating and adapting to climate change,” she said. “Bloomberg Philanthropies is pleased to join the Protecting Our Planet Challenge, an important movement to support communities whose food, livelihoods, and health are under threat by the projected worst of climate change and loss of biodiversity.”
Vicky Tauli Corpus, former UN special rapporteur on the rights of Ingenious Peoples and board chair at Nia Tero, said it was critical for biodiversity protection initiatives to be rolled out in close partnership with Indigenous peoples.
“Investing in the rights of Indigenous peoples and their guardianship of territory is one of the most important, and most overlooked, strategies for addressing the existential threats of climate change and biodiversity loss,” she said. “As an organisation committed to securing Indigenous guardianship of thriving ecosystems, we applaud these leading-edge funders for dramatically expanding support of this essential pathway to achieve the 30 by 30 targets.”
The funding commitment was applauded by conservation group WWF, which described it as a “a game changer that will help safeguard humanity, prevent pandemics and create essential new jobs”.
WWF International director general Marco Lambertini said the announcement was proof that the “world was converging around the need to reverse the loss of nature and is beginning to mobilise funds at scale, making a promising move towards closing the $700bn per year funding gap to reverse nature loss.”
“Adopting a clear nature-positive global goal will drive the repurposing of public and private funding to support sustainable practices in the sectors that today are driving nature and biodiversity loss, like agriculture, fishing, infrastructures,” he added. “It is possible and it also makes economic sense, as today we know that the cost of inaction will be huge and tragic. This is not only essential for nature: it will safeguard humanity, help prevent pandemics and create essential new jobs.”
The announcement was among a slew of commitments to biodiversity restoration which emerged from the sidelines of the UN General Assembly today.
At the same UN side event earlier, CEO of asset manager International Federated Hermes, Saker Nusseibeh, firstly announced that more than 75 financial institutions – which together manage more than €12tr of assets – have also joined forces in pledging to protect and restore biodiversity through their financing activities and investment, in part by reducing investments that were harmful to nature. The raft of firms behind the ‘Finance for Biodiversity Pledge’ published a public statement today urging governments to establish an “ambitious and transformational” post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) at the upcoming UN biodiversity talks in Kunming, China.
And, also at the UNGA event, Green Climate Fund executive director Yannick Glemarec confirmed the UN’s official climate finance mechanism planned to allocate $9bn of its budget to restoring ecosystems, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reiterated the European Union’s plan to double its external funding for biodiversity and allocate €4bn to the most vulnerable countries.
Other nature-focused announcements discussed at the meeting were a promise from Costa Rica to ramp up the percentage of oceans that it protects from 2.67 per cent to 30 per cent, and a pledge from Nigeria to establish ten new national parks across the country and the creation of new marine protection areas, according to National Geographic.
