4Nature – Details, episodes & analysis

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Today we dive into the remarkable story of Mozambique's BIOFUND, a trailblazing conservation trust fund that has revolutionized biodiversity protection in the country. Join our conversation with BIOFUND's visionary leaders, Dr. Narciso Matos and Sean Nazerali, as they share insights on the fund's innovative approach to engaging local communities, fostering public-private partnerships, and achieving impressive financial growth.

Discussed in this Episode:

• BIOFUND's unique membership model for engaging conservation stakeholders
• Strategies for efficiently disbursing funds to support protected areas
• The critical role of conservation trust funds during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic  
• Approaches for aligning community development with conservation goals
• Innovative finance mechanisms being explored, such as biodiversity offsets and a conservation credit card
• Vision for BIOFUND's future growth and impact in Mozambique and beyond

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Sinclair Vincent currently serves as the Senior Director of Sustainable Development, Program Development, and Innovation at Verra, a leading organization driving global investment in biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. In her role, Sinclair oversees the strategy, direction, and evolution of Verra's suite of programs, including the Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard, the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards, and the Plastic Waste Reduction Standard. She is also spearheading the development of Verra's SD VISta Nature Framework, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at scaling investment in biodiversity conservation on a global scale. With a strong focus on market development, Sinclair engages with corporate, commercial, and government stakeholders to ensure Verra's programs empower users to set and achieve increasingly ambitious environmental and social goals.

Discussed in this Episode:

• The crucial role of standardized measurement in scaling biodiversity credit markets
• Strategies for engaging Indigenous peoples and local communities in nature conservation
• The future of biodiversity credits and their potential to drive investment in nature
• Navigating the complex landscape of emerging biodiversity credit methodologies
• Insights on building trust, transparency, and capacity in nascent nature markets

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A new episode of 4Nature featuring Laure Katz, Vice President of Blue Nature & Co-Lead Implementation Blue Nature Alliance at Conservation International, is now available on all streaming platforms. In discussion with 4Nature Co-host David Meyers, Laure describes how her early love of marine life has powered her career of protecting the ocean. They discuss her work with Indigenous Papuan communities to protect the global epicenter of marine diversity, the Bird's Head Peninsula (BHP), and how integral it was in the first phase of the project to listen to the needs of the communities with strong ancestral and practical relationships with the Marine Protected Areas. Laure expands on the visionary Blue Nature Alliance and their mission to protect 5% of the global ocean by 2025; practically doubling the marine conservation efforts around the world. 

Listen for insights into Laure’s crucial work to help design and fund community-driven, community-led marine protected areas at the scale of a seascape. 

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In this episode of 4Nature, Kim speaks with Mariana Bellot, Technical Advisor at The Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) providing support to Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Peru and Mexico. Mariana and Kim discuss the importance of joining private and public sectors together under the goal of investing in conservation and restoration efforts, and Mariana shares a few financing strategies gaining traction, such as impact investing, blended finance and thematic bonds (rhino bonds, green bonds etc.) Mariana explains how “conservation without resources is only conversation” and how her work with BIOFIN helps secure those resources to build a sustainable future for people and the planet.

“We can turn the economy into a nature-positive economy… Not only conserving what we have but restoring what we’ve lost.”  - Mariana Bellot 

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In this episode, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, CEO of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), connects with 4Nature Co-host David Meyers, on the importance of including agriculture and conservation in conversations together, the power of public and private divesting from industries and activities that are harmful to the environment, his legacy of transformational environmental leadership in Costa Rica, and his mission to promote policy coherence in GEF’s work around the world.   

“All development policies from the central government or from the different sectors should be aligned and aimed to the same goals. We need to create the right incentives so all public and private investments are aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement” 

- Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, CEO of the Global Environment Facility on policy coherence 

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In this week's episode, David and Kim chat with Stacy Jupiter, WCS Wildlife Conservation Society’s Melanesia Regional Director and MacArthur Fellow on how she works directly with indigenous and local communities to facilitate better land management practices that benefit wildlife, marine ecosystems, and human health outcomes. They chat about her landmark Watershed Interventions for Systems Health in Fiji (WISH Fiji) program in Fiji and her landscape-level thinking that links health and nature in ways that could bring more financing to the important work of watershed management around the world.

“They’re talking about “ridge to reef” - let’s talk about integrated watershed management for multiple co-benefits; for public health, for ecosystems, and for all the climate benefits that you get along with it!”  - Stacy Jupiter 

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In a conversation recorded before COP26 in Glasgow 2021, David and Jen Morris, the CEO of The Nature Conservancy, discuss the interconnectedness of nature in public health, economics, and wellbeing, and aligning incentives to bring nature to the forefront of climate change conversations. 

"Until we can make that systemic change from it being a environment over here and economic development over here and never the two shall meet when it comes to policies and incentives, we're never going to mainstream nature into the economic frame it needs to be for us to see real change" - Jen Morris 

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David and Nik Sekhran, Chief Conservation Officer at WWF,  speak about what's working in nature finance right now, the importance of including infrastructure into ecosystem services conversations, and the inherent risk mitigation in financing nature. 

"Nature-based risks are enormous, we focus predominantly on climate change risks - and they're gargantuan - but nature-based risks are equally so and they can impact economies even faster than climate risks and they can affect all sectors. We need to look at carbon and the carbonization of the world economy but we can't ignore nature in that process or we will be left with a huge bill from nature."  - Nik Sekhran 

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David and Kim talk to David Johnson, Senior Lecturer in the Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about the management of public goods in the global economy and how we find a balance between individual needs and group success when it comes to nature and the climate crisis.

"A reason to be hopeful: we came together to stop a global pandemic..what's stopping us from having the same global response to climate change? ... it may be a moment to be seized." - David Johnson