Building a
Biodiversity-based
Economy
In 2010, 196 nations signed the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets in an effort to reduce the pressure human life places on biodiversity and restore lost ecosystems by 2020.
By 2020 only 6 out of the 20 targets had been achieved and then only in part.
While some efforts have been made, we now have over 1 million species of plants and animals moving closer to extinction.
The decline in biodiversity worldwide will not only result in the extinction of animal and plant species but will also threaten genetic diversity, human food sources and health security. It threatens economies, undermines government funding and can destabilise entire countries.
Scaled Impact, in collaboration with several partners from finance and the public sector, is building biodiversity-based finance mechanisms to address bio-diversity protection, maintenance and restoration.
We are developing high quality market instruments to address, at different levels, the gaps left in the failure of bio-diversity finance. Our finance approach defines the economic value linked to biodiversity and gives a basis to allocate it to local communities, countries, private sector companies and to investors.
The impact of biodiversity collapse is felt by all people but has particularly severe consequences for indigenous peoples and local communities living in biodiversity hotspots and carrying the burden of both biodiversity degradation and inequitable conservation efforts.
These communities depend on the environment and biodiversity for sustenance, shelter and their livelihoods. Our mechanism creates a system to share economic value with these local communities. We have a pipeline of projects across Africa and South America, applying our project structuring approach to address biodiversity and the needs of local communities.
Addressing bio-diversity is a complex problem with indirect and often remote links between human activity and the bio-diversity systems that supports it.
Current financing instruments whether private sector or public, are not able to address both biodiversity and socio-economic needs. The methods and mechanisms designed to date have added bio-diversity as a marginal, additional outcome rather than the focus of finance. They have been opaque and not close to addressing the extent of the finance needs as well as the highly varied eco-system needs.
