The community of Ixtlán de Juárez in Oaxaca, Mexico is a great example of the multiple economic, ecological and social benefits of a sustainably managed community forest. Forest management and ownership has fostered social and economic prosperity in this community while protecting the unique environmental values of its land. It is an indigenous Zapotec community located in one of the poorest areas of Mexico in the rugged mountains of the Sierra Juarez. Revenues from forest management have been reinvested over the years in the creation and growth of different community-owned enterprises.

Among the piping plovers and marsh grasses of New Jersey’s scenic coast, environmentalists and communities are busy creating green infrastructure to shield the shorelines from storm damage while supporting local economies. The Coastal Resilience Collaborative, the New Jersey Resilient Coastlines Initiative, and the NJ Climate Adaptation Alliance are bringing financial and tactical resources to bear on restoring reefs, wetlands, marshes and dunes.

What does it take to pull together a coalition of diverse stakeholders to prevent wildfires from growing explosively in the western United States? Blue Forest Conservation is listening to a broad range of views as it seeks to build traction for the Forest Resilience Bond on the local, state and national levels to reduce wildfire intensity.

National news coverage of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 painted a bleak picture of Houston’s ability to face severe storms. Some articles portrayed urban sprawl as having wiped out the city’s ability to cope with natural disasters, saying Texas policies were to blame.

The Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) program of the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) stands out as a valuable tool for innovative conservation projects to gain access to startup capital and to meet the demand for private investment on working lands. In June 2017, NRCS announced a new cohort of CIG awardees in the Conservation Finance category with a total of $8.8 million in funding across 11 projects.

As severe wildfires leave their charred mark on the western United States this season, Conservation Finance Network interviewed Blue Forest Conservation staff about the Forest Resilience Bond project. This massive collaboration is bringing private finance to bear on ecological restoration to reduce the risk of these catastrophes.

Funneling money toward forest conservation in the developing world may sound easier than it is. Once one gets into the weeds of implementing sustainable-forestry-finance frameworks like REDD+ at an international level, the challenges of climate finance come to the surface. This year, the game plan is changing to expand this financing space. United States nonprofits and investors will have new opportunities to help rainforest conservation flourish.

What if the development of these approaches could be responsibly accelerated? What if we could shorten the time it takes for environmental markets and investment vehicles to be defined, piloted, scaled, and matured—without cutting corners? The Conservation Finance Network’s recent report, “Private Capital and Working Lands Conservation: A Market Development Framework,” responds to these questions by translating practitioner insight into a framework and common language in the hope of speeding solutions to market development. The report attempts to describe how stakeholders could better delineate their roles and focus their money and authority. It is meant to help stakeholders set realistic...