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How biodiversity credits could help to conserve and restore nature

Biodiversity-credit markets could succeed in ways that, so far, carbon-credit markets have not — as long as the right rules of play are in place from the start.
By
  1. Alexandre Antonelli

    1. Alexandre Antonelli is the director of science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, and professor of biodiversity at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

  2. Ximena Rueda

    1. Ximena Rueda is the dean and associate professor at the School of Management at the University of the Andes, Bogotá, and co-chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Business and Biodiversity Assessment.

  3. Robert Calcagno

    1. Robert Calcagno is the chief executive of the Oceanographic Institute, Prince Albert I of Monaco Foundation, Monaco, and managing director of Monaco Explorations, Monaco.

  4. Pauline Nantongo Kalunda

    1. Pauline Nantongo Kalunda is the executive director of the Environmental Conservation Trust of Uganda, Kampala, and leader of the Trees for Global Benefit initiative.

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This year’s Global Risks Report from the World Economic Forum ranked ‘biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse’ as one of the three most severe risks that societies face over the next ten years, alongside ‘extreme weather’ and ‘critical change to Earth systems’ caused by climate change1.

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Nature 634, 1045-1049 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03475-2

References

  1. World Economic Forum The Global Risks Report 2024 Edn 19 (2024).

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Supplementary Information

  1. Biodiversity credits Comment Supplementary Information - list of co-signatories

Competing Interests

P.N.K. works at the Environmental Conservation Trust of Uganda.

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