Cape Town - At the fifth Global Conference on Biodiversity Finance in Cape Town, governments from a variety of countries as well as academics and the private sector stressed the importance of “moving money” for biodiversity to close the significant biodiversity funding gap in developing countries – or face unprecedented ecosystem collapse.
Delegates at the conference in the Table Bay Hotel, from over 40 countries, are exploring biodiversity finance solutions from May 9 until May 11 to address challenges in biodiversity protection, which is in severe decline due to a combination of conflicting private and public interests, incoherent policy and governance, and insufficient financing.
The conference is hosted by the South African government and UN Development Programme’s flagship Biodiversity Finance Initiative (Biofin) – which works with countries to create sustainable finance solutions to protect and nurture biodiversity.
Inger Anderson, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (Unep), reflected on the landmark Global Biodiversity Framework reached at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in December 2022, which includes concrete measures to halt and reverse nature loss, including putting 30% of the planet and 30% of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030.
However, Anderson said a lot of work still lay ahead because woefully inadequate finance to developing countries has crippled these agreements for nearly 30 years.
“We need to see the Global North showing the kind of commitment that will be reflected in real biodiversity action,” Anderson said.
Delivering the keynote address at the conference, Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Barbara Creecy said that despite their policy developments furthering biodiversity protection, a massive financial gap remained when it came to funding in the biodiversity sector – this gap is both global and local.
Creecy highlighted that South Africa’s biodiversity, considered one of richest in the world, is not only a national and cultural asset, but also a source of economic prosperity and employment in the wildlife economy, eco-tourism, natural resource management and more.
“This year our government adopted the White Paper on the Sustainable use of South Africa’s Biological Diversity, which outlines four strategic goals of conservation, sustainable use, equitable sharing of benefits and transformation. We regard this white paper as our own strategy to implement the Global Biodiversity Framework adopted,” Creecy said.
Nelson Muffuh, UN Resident Co-ordinator in South Africa, added that financing and investments were nowhere near where they need to be, so they needed to used this conference to address this urgently and step up.
