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Heavy reliance on private finance alone will not deliver conservation goals

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 7, pages 1339–1342 (2023)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 28 July 2023

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The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework envisages an increasing reliance on large-scale private finance to fund biodiversity targets. We warn that this may pose contradictions in delivering conservation outcomes and propose a critical ongoing role for direct public funding of conservation and public oversight of private nature-related financial mechanisms.

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Fig. 1: Financial instruments designed to draw private finance into conservation.
Fig. 2: Antagonisms between conservation and financial investor outcomes.

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Acknowledgements

S.O.S.E.z.E. and S.W. acknowledge support from the EU Horizon 2020 project SUPERB (Ref.: GA-101036849). K.K. and J.R.-C. acknowledge support from the Laudes Foundation (Ref.: GR-071997) and Partners for a New Economy (Ref.: “Central banks, financial regulation and nature”). S.O.S.E.z.E. is also supported by AGILE: Providing rapid evidence-based solutions to the needs of environmental policymakers (Ref.: NE/W004976/1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London, London, UK

    Katie Kedward & Josh Ryan-Collins

  2. Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Sophus zu Ermgassen

  3. European Forest Institute, Barcelona, Spain

    Sven Wunder

Authors
  1. Katie Kedward
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  2. Sophus zu Ermgassen
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  3. Josh Ryan-Collins
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Correspondence to Katie Kedward or Sophus zu Ermgassen.

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Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks Paul Steele for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Kedward, K., zu Ermgassen, S., Ryan-Collins, J. et al. Heavy reliance on private finance alone will not deliver conservation goals. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 1339–1342 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02098-6

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