Photo credit: AGAMI/Adobe Stock
The world’s largest-ever gathering on nature finance opened in Chile this week, as over 130 countries rallied behind global biodiversity goals, exploring bold innovations — from nature bonds to repurposed subsidies, from fintech to nature credits — to unlock sustainable funding for conservation in an era of declining international aid.
With 92 new countries advancing their national ‘Biodiversity Finance Plans,’ the conference signaled a groundswell of global support for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, following in the heels of the UN Conference on Biodiversity (COP16) earlier this year.
The message was clear: innovation in public finance, subsidy repurposing, private sector engagement, and access to finance for Indigenous Peoples and local communities are essential to sustainable finance for nature.
The 6th edition of the Global Conference on Biodiversity Finance (May 6-8) is organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN).
The largest gathering of the nature finance community to date convened senior government figures representing ministries of environment and finance, as well as key cabinet members.
“We are very proud as a country to welcome the 133 countries that are part of UNDP’s BIOFIN,” said Maisa Rojas, Minister of the Environment of Chile, speaking at the opening session.
“Today, the main challenge is to make biodiversity visible and recognize its critical role in economic development, social organization, and the identity of our countries, bringing its understanding to a clear, measurable dimension that is integrated into national accounts and sustainable economic development,” she said.
She added that “as a country, we understand that solutions cannot stand alone—they must always involve cooperation in its many forms. That is why we are working on the integration of climate and biodiversity policies. One example is our Framework Law on Climate Change, which sets the goal of carbon neutrality and resilience by 2050, promoting the use of nature-based solutions as tools for mitigation and adaptation. This presents a great opportunity to link biodiversity actions and metrics with climate adaptation and financing instruments.”
Approximately one million animal and plant species are currently threatened with extinction, many within the coming decades. This decline is primarily driven by human activities, including land and sea use changes, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and the introduction of invasive species.
"Safeguarding nature is not just one priority among many — it is the foundation that sustains our economies, our societies, and the promise of a dignified future,” said Michelle Muschett, UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.
“Human development cannot be separated from the health of our natural world. In Latin America and the Caribbean, a biodiversity superpower, UNDP is working with countries to transform how nature conservation is valued and financed," she said.
"As UNDP marks 60 years of advancing sustainable development, we reaffirm our commitment to solutions that protect, restore, and sustain the ecosystems that anchor resilience, prosperity, and well-being of the planet and present and future generations," she added.
The Global Environment Facility, in partnership with UNDP’s BIOFIN – a global initiative dedicated to designing and implementing biodiversity finance solutions at scale - is supporting more than 90 countries to develop biodiversity finance plans.
These plans were recognized at the UN Biodiversity COP16 in Colombia as an ‘enabling action’ to close the global biodiversity finance gap, which stands at over $700 billion per year.
"The GEF is pleased to be working with BIOFIN to accelerate the actions that will close the biodiversity finance gap and help the world achieve the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework,” said Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, GEF CEO and Chairperson.
“Together we are helping governments realign financial flows and mobilize domestic resources for biodiversity as well as ensuring that biodiversity is fully integrated into economic and development priorities and not treated as an afterthought,” he said.
Photo credit: BIOFIN
As traditional development aid continues to decline, the need for more catalytic funding models has never been greater. Finance-for-finance — the strategic use of limited donor resources to unlock much larger pools of public and private finance — offers a critical pathway forward.
UNDP’s BIOFIN has deployed the finance-for-finance approach in 41 countries to catalyze over $1.6 billion for nature since 2018.
Small catalytic investments in policies, financial structures, and incentives have unlocked far larger sustainable finance flows, making the finance-for-finance model a proven accelerator for countries aiming to meet their biodiversity and development goals.
Some examples of impact from BIOFIN’s finance-for-finance approach (2024 figures):
- Botswana revised protected area fees in 2024, following the recommendations in their biodiversity finance plan, raising national park revenues by $7 million in a single year.
- Argentina designed a $420 million biodiversity finance plan in Misiones Province, integrating Jaguar Conservation Insurance to protect critical ecosystems.
- Ecuador’s government distributed over $800 million in microloans using environmental safeguards to incentivize nature-positive small business growth
- Thailand introduced a visitor fee of less than $1 on its southern island of Koh Tao to raise funding for coral and marine biodiversity protections, generating a cumulative total of $314,000 by the end of 2024.
- In Kazakhstan, legislative reform led to a tripling of protected area budgets since 2018, totaling $70.3 million.
Environmentally harmful subsidies were another major talking point at the conference.
Countries increasingly recognize that repurposing harmful subsidies offers a double win: it not only saves public money by reducing inefficient spending, but also delivers major biodiversity gains by ending incentives that drive environmental destruction. UNDP supports countries in developing multiple scenarios to redesign a subsidy.
The recurring theme at the conference was a growing role for the private sector in driving nature-positive investment decisions, through blended finance instruments such as green bonds, and approaches such as access and benefit sharing, as well as contributions for genetic resources that their business are anchored too.
A global shift to nature-positive economies could generate as much as $10 trillion in new business opportunities, according to UNDP’s Nature Pledge – a flagship commitment to support 140 countries achieve the global biodiversity targets.
This conference exemplifies the momentum we are building through the UNDP Nature Pledge to shift how we account for nature in our economic and financial systems around the world,” said Midori Paxton, Global Director of UNDP’s Nature Hub.
“By bringing together over 130 countries, we are not only reaffirming our collective commitment to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework but also translating that commitment into actionable strategies through strong initiatives such as BIOFIN,” she said.
The progress achieved at the 6th Global Conference comes at a pivotal time, with major global milestones ahead in 2025, including the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Spain and the UN Climate COP30 in Brazil. It offers a crucial opportunity to advance the integration of biodiversity finance into national development plans and the broader Sustainable Development Goals agenda.
The biodiversity and climate crises are deeply interconnected, reinforcing and accelerating each other. Climate change is now one of the leading drivers of biodiversity loss, altering habitats, disrupting ecosystems, and pushing species toward extinction.
At the same time, the destruction of forests, wetlands, oceans, and other natural systems weakens the planet’s ability to absorb carbon and regulate the climate.
Originally published by BIOFIN.
