Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Private funding is essential to leverage forest and landscape restoration at global scales

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 3, pages 1612–1615 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Private-sector capital is needed to scale-up forest and landscape restoration initiatives globally. To ensure the delivery of social and environmental restoration objectives, investors need to be matched appropriately to different types of restoration projects, while policies need to realign investment incentives away from degradation-driving activities.

Forest and landscape restoration (FLR) has caught public and policy attention as a means to rehabilitate degraded ecosystems, recover biodiversity, sequester carbon, and alleviate poverty and hunger1. Fifty-seven countries, subnational governments and private enterprises have already committed over 170 million hectares for restoration as part of the Bonn Challenge, which aims to restore 350 million hectares within the next decade, and the United Nations General Assembly has declared 2021–2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, with goals to scale-up the restoration of degraded ecosystems. One of the main challenges for delivering on these targets is mobilizing the estimated US$36–49 billion annual funds needed for large-scale restoration interventions2. To achieve this, it is pivotal to understand where private investment potential for restoration lies, and how we can shift financial incentives from activities that drive degradation to those that support restoration.

Access options

Rent or Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

from$8.99

Rent or Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Fig. 1: A typology of investment approaches and options for FLR.

References

  1. 1.

    Sabogal, C., Besacier, C. & McGuire, D. Unasylva 66, 3–10 (2015).

    Google Scholar 

  2. 2.

    Sustainable Financing for Forest and Landscape Restoration: Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2015).

  3. 3.

    Ghazoul, J. & Chazdon, R. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 42, 161–188 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. 4.

    Ding, H. et al. Roots of Prosperity: The Economics and Finance of Restoring Land (World Resources Institute, 2017).

  5. 5.

    De Groot, R. S. et al. Conserv. Biol. 27, 1286–1293 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. 6.

    Galaz, V., Crona, B., Dauriach, A., Scholtens, B. & Steffen, W. Glob. Environ. Change 53, 296–302 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. 7.

    Brancalion, P. H. S. et al. For. Policy Econ. 85, 103–113 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. 8.

    Gutierrez, V. & Keijzer, M.-N. Unasylva 245, 99–106 (2015).

    Google Scholar 

  9. 9.

    Campbell, B. M., Thornton, P., Zougmore, R., van Asten, P. & Lipper, L. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 8, 39–43 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. 10.

    Hamrick, K. State of Private Investment in Conservation 2016: A Landscape Assessment of an Emerging Market (Forest Trends, 2017).

  11. 11.

    Kleinschroth, F., Garcia, C. & Ghazoul, J. Ambio 48, 153–159 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. 12.

    Green Bonds: State of the Market 2018 (Climate Bonds Initiative, 2019).

  13. 13.

    1st corporate sustainability bond in Asia issued by TLFF for a natural rubber company in Indonesia. Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility https://go.nature.com/2PccVA6 (2018).

  14. 14.

    Green Bonds and Integrated Landscape Management (IUCN National Committee of the Netherlands, 2018).

  15. 15.

    Railsback, S. F. & Johnson, M. D. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 6109–6114 (2014).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  16. 16.

    Nesper, M., Kueffer, C., Krishnan, S., Kushalappa, C. G. & Ghazoul, J. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 247, 172–181 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. 17.

    Anderson, C. M., Asner, G. P., Llactayo, W. & Lambin, E. F. Land Use Policy 79, 174–178 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. 18.

    Viani, R. A. G., Braga, D. P. P., Ribeiro, M. C., Pereira, P. H. & Brancalion, P. H. S. Trop. Conserv. Sci. 11, 1–9 (2018).

    Google Scholar 

  19. 19.

    Porras, I. Nature 487, 302 (2012).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  20. 20.

    Ghazoul, J., Garcia, C. A. & Kushalappa, C. G. For. Ecol. Manage. 258, 1889–1895 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. 21.

    Government Pension Fund Global Annual Report (Norges Bank Investment Management, 2018).

  22. 22.

    Nolte, C., de Waroux, Y. L., Munger, J., Reis, T. N. P. & Lambin, E. F. Glob. Environ. Change 43, 1–14 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. 23.

    Schweizer, D., van Kuijk, M., Meli, P., Bernardini, L. E. & Ghazoul, J. Forests 10, 530 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. 24.

    Havemann, T., Schuster, D., Leigh-Bell, J., Negra, C. & Levonen, A. Levering Ecosystems: A Business-Focused Perspective on How Debt Supports Investments in Ecosystem Services (Credit Suisse, 2016).

Download references

Acknowledgements

S.L. is funded by an ETH Zurich doctoral research grant. J.G. holds the Prince Bernhard Chair of International Nature Conservation, through which some of the ideas emerged.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Ecosystem Management, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Sara Löfqvist & Jaboury Ghazoul

  2. Centre for Sustainable Forests and Landscapes, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Jaboury Ghazoul

  3. Ecology and Biodiversity Group, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Jaboury Ghazoul

Authors
  1. Sara Löfqvist
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jaboury Ghazoul
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

The article was conceptualized by J.G., the research was undertaken by S.L., and the paper was written and edited jointly by S.L. and J.G.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jaboury Ghazoul.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Löfqvist, S., Ghazoul, J. Private funding is essential to leverage forest and landscape restoration at global scales. Nat Ecol Evol 3, 1612–1615 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-1031-y

Download citation

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing