On May 24th at 10am EDT, CFA will be hosting a webinar with Robert Weary of TNC’s NatureVest to discuss an ambitious $40 million initiative to promote ocean conservation as recently announced by The Nature Conservancy. The initiative is based on delivering debt conversions to up to 20 countries over the next five years. The plan, which was selected from more than 1,500 Audacious Project applicants, has already secured more than $23 million in funding from various donors out of the $40 million TNC ultimately requires to unlock $1.6 billion toward marine conservation.
Please join the CFA and Robert Weary on May 24th at 10am EDT to discuss this exciting initiative. Robert will present the overall plan and its aims, and will answer questions regarding this project. Please circulate this announcement to relevant colleagues in your networks.
Please Register for the Webinar on the CFA Website.
Upcoming ICRI Webinar, June 5th- Finance Tools for Coral Reef Conservation: An Overview
Presented by: David Meyers of the Conservation Finance Alliance and Venkat Iyer of UN Environment
This webinar will be offered at two different times:
· Viewing 1: Wednesday, June 5, Noon US EDT/9 am US PDT/4 pm UTC
· Viewing 2: Wednesday, June 5, 9 pm US EDT/6 pm US PDT (Thursday June 6, 9 am Australian WST/11 am Australian EST/1 am UTC)
Description: The Wildlife Conservation Society, in collaboration with the Conservation Finance Alliance and in support of the 50 Reefs initiative, recently released "Finance Tools for Coral Reef Conservation: A Guide" as a resource for protected area managers and others charged with managing and financing reef conservation. The report describes 13 types of finance tools which have either been proven successful at or have great potential to support reef conservation and sustainable management. Some of the finance tools to be covered in this overview webinar include various tourism-based fees, biodiversity offsets, bonds, debt swaps, and conservation trust funds. This webinar will share key findings and recommendations from the report and invite discussion from participants. This webinar is sponsored by the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI), an informal partnership which strives to preserve coral reefs and related ecosystems around the world, as part of its collaboration with the Conservation Finance Alliance for promoting innovative financing for coral reef conservation.
Co-sponsors: OCTO (OpenChannels, The Skimmer, MPA News), the EBM Tools Network (co-coordinated by OCTO and NatureServe), and the Reef Resilience Network
Register:
· Viewing 1: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BoVvSwLgQ-GqO7osvPc4YQ
· Viewing 2: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_RhZKT0S4SQW3DPJ3K0XNXg
Photo Credit: Jayne Jenkins
Upcoming CFA Webinar: Fighting Fire with Finance; Introducing the Forest Resilience Bond
On May 9th at 12pm EDT, CFA will be hosting a webinar with Blue Forest Conservation on their Forest Resilience Bond. Blue Forest Conservation is committed to creating sustainable financial solutions to pressing environmental challenges. They recently launched their first innovative finance mechanism, the Forest Resilience Bond, in partnership with the US Forest Service, the World Resources Institute, and Encourage Capital in the Tahoe National Forest in California in 2018. Instead of relying on budget-constrained government agencies, the Forest Resilience Bond deploys investor capital to finance the upfront costs of proactive forest restoration in an effort to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire and associated carbon emissions as well while protecting water resources. Investors earn returns through cost-sharing contracts with the US Forest Service, utilities, and state governments that benefit from the restoration treatments. In addition to wildfire, air quality, and water benefits, the Forest Resilience Bond creates jobs, protects communities, and makes forests more resilient to climate change while offering competitive returns to investors.
April 17th: Forum on Financing for Development Side Event
Scaling Up Conservation Finance: What will it take?
Wed. 17th April 2019, 1:15-2:30pm Conference Room S-2726-2727
Organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations, this event explores the challenges and innovative approaches to meeting the challenges of mobilizing finance, including private finance, on a scale needed to halt and reverse the degradation of natural ecosystems and loss of
biodiversity of the past several decades. This is critical to achieving the sustainable development goals, yet until now investments in natural capital remain severely underfunded. A number of initiatives supported by new thinking and financial innovation are trying to address this challenge, with some success. The event will review some of the more interesting initiatives with a view to informing Ministries of Finance, multilateral and national development banks, and private financiers attending this year’s Financing for Development Forum at the United Nations. The event aims to stimulate discussion between public, private and conservation community actors on ways to mobilize larger amounts for investment in conservation of valuable ecosystems and biodiversity.
Following the 2016 World Conservation Congress, IUCN and partners launched the Coalition for Private Investment in Conservation (CPIC), which continues its work to provide substantive guidance to financial institutions on designing financial instruments which yield both attractive financial returns and significant conservation benefits. The progress of CPIC’s work will be presented, as will the experience of other conservation finance initiatives.
A key question for discussion will be: what are the key obstacles to large-scale ‘bankability’ of conservation projects and how are they being overcome. It has been suggested that the conservation finance field is still wide open to intermediaries, to project aggregators with field expertise who can respond to the substantial interest of investors by packing projects to meet size thresholds. Intermediaries are tasked with providing replicability and standardization for investors1. At the same time, there is a need for project developers on the ground who can wed the needs of local nature and local communities with the needs of global investors.
Agenda:
Opening remarks: H.E. Anne Gueguen, Deputy Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations
Moderator: David O’Connor, Permanent Observer to UN, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Standardize, Replicate and Aggregate: the Work of the Coalition for Private Investment in Conservation (CPIC)
Frank Hawkins, Head of IUCN North America Office
Financing Conservation at Scale: Perspectives from the Field
Caleb McClennen, Vice President Global Conservation, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
The Lion’s Share: Harnessing Advertising Power for Conservation Financing
Midori Paxton, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Lessons for Conservation Finance from Climate Finance
Bruce Usher, Columbia Business School
NatureVest Infrastructure and Renewable Energy Investment in Emerging Markets
JC Danilovich, Senior Director, NatureVest, The Nature Conservancy
Lessons on Getting to Scale from the Conservation Finance Alliance
David Meyers, Executive Director, Conservation Finance Alliance
Q&A and Open Discussion
For those without a UN grounds pass, please RSVP to Conor Strong (conor.strong@ext.iucn.org) with your name as printed on your government issued ID by noon Friday, 12 April 2019.
Photo credit: UN Forum Home Page
Recap of Webinar with Caribbean-Pacific Alliance
On February 6, 2019, Zdenka Piskulich, Marcello Hernandez and María José Gonzalez presented a CFA webinar on the Caribbean-Pacific Alliance and Blue Challenge.
The Caribbean-Pacific Alliance is a unique collaborative platform to address shared marine and coastal conservation issues in the Tropical Eastern Pacific and Caribbean oceans. The Alliance is composed of PACÍFICO (a platform of four Conservation Trust Funds in the Tropical Eastern Pacific), the Mesoamerican Reef (MAR) Fund, and the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund. Together, they encompass two oceans, 16 countries, 4 million km2 and 5 World Heritage Sites, and through the Alliance, they have a structure to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration. One of the Caribbean-Pacific Alliance's first initiatives is Blue Challenge, an incubator to build the pipeline of investable projects in the conservation space through technical assistance.
A recording of the webinar, and the Powerpoint presentation, are available on the Webinars page.
A second webinar in Spanish on the same content will be held in the coming weeks.
Recap from CBD COP 14 - "Finance as the Foundation for the post-2020 New Global Deal for Biodiversity"
Finance leaders gathered in November in Egypt to debate the past, present and future of financing conservation during a parallel event of the High Level Segment of the CBD COP 14. The event brought together a diverse range of leaders who are forging a new path for a post-2020 framework for biodiversity conservation – dubbed ‘the New Deal for Nature’. Read the full story from BIOFIN here.
CFA at the World Ocean Summit
The CFA and WCS, through generous support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, Vulcan Inc. and the Pacific Ocean Finance Program, are collaborating with The Economist for the upcoming World Ocean Summit panel entitled: Masterclass 2—Mobilising Capital: Engaging Investors in Coral Reef Finance. David Meyers CFA Executive Director and Melissa Walsh - CFA Member - will be panelists in this session. The World Ocean Summit will be held March 5-7 in Abu Dhabi. Click here to register. Please notify the CFA Secretariat if you will be coming so we can arrange for a meeting or dinner.
Upcoming CFA Webinar: Caribbean-Pacific Alliance
The webinar will take place February 6th at 11am EST.
Three regional environmental funds, with a focus on marine conservation, have established the Caribbean-Pacific Alliance: Caribbean Biodiversity Fund, PACIFICO and the MAR Fund. Together, they encompass two oceans, 16 countries, 4 million km2 and 5 World Heritage Sites. Join them on February 6, 2019, as they share advances in their knowledge exchange, mobilization of resources and their soon-to-be-launched Blue Challenge Initiative. Please forward this webinar info to your colleagues.
Banner image: Pue Coral Gardens, Cook Islands
Credit: The Ocean Agency / XL Catlin Seaview Survey / Coral Reef Image Ban
E-Course - Introduction to Global Environmental Facility (GEF)
This e-course is offered by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It provides an overview of the GEF, a unique international organization that is dedicated to safeguarding the global environment. By completing this e-course, you will gain knowledge of the GEF’s mission, history and institutional structure. You will understand the organizing principles and areas of work in the 7th GEF replenishment period (GEF-7). You will also learn about key cross cutting issues; the basics of GEF funding and its operational policies, as well as the results framework for GEF-7. It is a joint production by the GEF Secretariat’s Knowledge & Learning Team and the Open Learning Campus (OLC) of the World Bank Group and is hosted by the OLC. This e-course is also a part of the GEF Academy curriculum that is available on the GEF website.
Target Audience: GEF partners and stakeholders who work on GEF relevant project development and implementation – decision makers, managers and staff working on global environmental issues.
This course is free. For more information, please contact Yasemin E.K. Biro at ybiro@thegef.org
Biodiversity Finance Online Open Course
Do you need to make a stronger business case for biodiversity conservation? Do you want to become more skilled at developing financially sound and politically feasible solutions to conservation and development challenges? Do you need to know how to develop an effective biodiversity finance plan? Do you want access to more tools to assess the policy, institutional, and economic context for biodiversity finance, and to conduct a financial needs assessment to achieve a country’s biodiversity goals?
BIOFIN is offering a FREE seven-week Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) called Biodiversity Finance. It will be facilitated in English, French, Spanish and Russian, and will run from 15 April to 31 May 2019. The course is aimed at conservation planning and biodiversity finance practitioners and policymakers, but is open to everyone.
View the full invitation here, or click here to register.