I’m someone who has always seen conservation as the work done by field biologists on restoration properties and in wildlife rehabilitation centers. As I sat through sessions on debt and ratios, I couldn’t help but think to myself “are all these numbers really that important?” It turns out: yes they...
How does Atlanta's Proctor Creek connect to national water management and worldwide carbon mitigation? The same way conversations about small projects connect to global biodiversity breakthroughs. / Shawn Taylor / CC BY 2.0
How can professionals who devote their lives to sustaining real places connect in virtual space? Judging from the 2021
Boot Camp, pretty intensely. Digital again for the first time, the 2021 Conservation Finance Boot Camp drew over 120 professionals from at least six time zones to learn proven...
Maine's freshwater supply benefits from fresh ideas and metrics that flow from partnerships.
To the question “should partnerships advance water quality?”, many practitioners answer: “Yes, but how exactly?” A survey at the outset of the 2021 New England
Roundtable showed 36% of participants were “not sure how to get started” with pursuing water utility partnerships, 39% were “already doing it,” and...
Risks and opportunities in natural ecosystems will prove a lot harder to count.
The understanding has spread that companies face risks and opportunities in nature, just as they do in competitive markets or under certain regulations. In that context, a new group called the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) aims to broaden and deepen investors' interest in details from companies about...
(Courtesy the Conservation Fund) From idea to impetus to investment, Maryland's bill aims for impact.
A law is emerging from a structured set of discussions among participants in current Chesapeake Bay conservation program. It represents a series of levers to squeeze clarity and value out of current regulation, redefining blue infrastructure and creating space for profitable trading in carbon. The law, with support from one-half...
(Courtesy Julius Pasay of the Climate Trust.) When delicate landscapes like Oregon's Zumwalt Prairie comprise the asset, the off-take partner needs to pass rigorous review.
This op/ed builds off the Enduring Arches: Building
Projects for Impact report. Gordian Knot Strategies developed that report in collaboration with the Conservation Finance Network and with the generous support of the Walton Family Foundation. The full report can be accessed here. This op/ed originally ran on ImpactAlpha...
Asset managers have rapidly affirmed biodiversity's value to capitalism. Is there froth ahead?
Two recent investment projects are raising significant money to try to show that taking natural capital investment to the next level is not only possible, but potentially a key piece for future institutional asset managers to include in a balanced portfolio. No matter how you slice it, to get a...
A tree-planting project fits the civic focus of the Western Reserve Land Conservancy. (Photo courtesy WRLC.)
While more public funding sources have emerged recently for conservation finance, particularly around working farms, landowners with means and motivation remain a staple of the private conservation process. These landowners are largely white, and their properties most often located in rural and suburban areas. The distribution of conserved land and...
(Courtesy Ghana Forestry Commission.) Can this soil nourish entrepreneurs as well as crops?
In Ghana, fertile forests have attracted poaching and razing. Now they're attracting a coalition that aims to restore forests and empower female farmers. Leaders aim for the restoration of 200,000 hectares of off-reserve savannah forests and woodlands by placing them under Community Resource Management Areas (CREMA). These target 100,000 hectares...
the southeast corner of Georgia, bisected by Interstate 95, sits the county of Camden. One side of the county features a complex coastline highlighted by the winding East River and Satilla Rivers and their tributaries. The Cumberland barrier island sits atop these river mouths dampening the wave action from the...
