AUTHORS: Marianne Kettunen – Dalia D’Amato – Patrick ten Brink – Leonardo Mazza – Augustin Malou – Sirini Withana

The projected global needs of US$150 – 440 billion per year to implement the 2020 Aichi Targets for biodiversity are currently only partially met. Globally, an estimated US$51.5-53.4 billion is allocated annually to fund biodiversity and ecosystem services. A significant amount of the global needs (US$74 – 191 billion in 2014-2018) is foreseen to take place in developing countries. Most of the current financing for biodiversity, however, is delivered in the developed countries while economically developing regions with the highest predicted loss of biodiversity, such Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, continue to suffer from the lack of resources. Consequently, there is an urgent need to find additional and sufficient resources to enable developing countries to implement the 2020 Aichi Targets for biodiversity and, at the same time, fulfilling the commitments by developed countries to provide additional finance to match the costs of implementing the global targets.

The results of this scoping study indicate that financing the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity from different biodiversity-relevant sectoral funding flows (agriculture, forestry, fisheries, climate change, tourism etc.) provides a viable approach for complementing global biodiversity financing. Such sectoral resource mobilisation can be achieved using a variety of instruments and approaches, such as innovative financial mechanisms (IFM) including payments for ecosystem services (PES), biodiversity offsetting, green taxation, markets for green products, certification of products and production sites, and integrated funding for biodiversity and climate change adaptation. Such approaches and mechanisms are foreseen to increase contributions from public as well as private funding sources to supplement the existing public funding specifically earmarked for biodiversity.

Finally, sectoral resource mobilisation can be supported using the increasing understanding of the benefits and socio-economic value of biodiversity as a leverage point for accessing different domestic and international sectoral budgets. Investment in conserving, maintaining and/or restoring nature provides benefits to a range of economic sectors. Consequently, sectoral resource mobilisation can both support global biodiversity targets and lead to sector-specific public benefits and benefits to businesses, enterprises and individuals.