A group of young Chileans is working with Reforestemos Patagonia to reverse environmental damage. After more than a century of colonization of its wild and remote landscapes, Patagonia shows the scars of land abuses emerging among impressive mountain peaks, spectacular glaciers, and immense rivers and forests.

The 2016 Global Landscapes Forum: Climate Action for Sustainable Development event “Unlocking Private Finance in Forests, Sustainable Land Use and Restoration,” held during COP22 in Marrakech on Nov. 16, brought landscape and finance experts together to discuss ways to advance private investment in sustainable use of land and forests.

When the quality of land degrades, environmental, social and economic opportunities evaporate. The United Nations is working to prevent land degradation globally. In this interview, Simone Quatrini, Land Degradation Neutrality Fund coordinator and team leader at the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, said his program is attempting a worldwide conservation finance effort. There is massive work to be done.

Over two decades of conservation leadership by North American philanthropists Douglas and Kristine Tompkins have culminated in a major land donation that marks a milestone in the history of global land conservation. The Sept. 23 signing of a donation agreement transferring 375,000 acres from Tompkins Conservation to the Argentine government created Iberá National Park in the northern province of Corrientes.

The current conservation finance gap is estimated to be $200-300 billion per year. As public and philanthropic investment in conservation are in decline, private investment has the potential to bridge it. That was the key message conveyed by the Coalition for Private Investment in Conservation launched at the International Union for Conservation of Nature 2016 World Conservation Congress on Sept. 2, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The new Natural Resource Investment Center at the United States Department of the Interior is making strides toward using market-based approaches and innovative public-private partnerships to tackle natural resource and conservation issues. For years, the nation has been slowly coming to terms with aging water infrastructure, dealing with water shortages in the West, and attempting to revamp species and landscape conservation efforts.

Environmental NGOs and banks are both increasingly interested in conservation as a business opportunity. However, in the past, they have sometimes had an adversarial relationship. Their approaches to financing have also differed. In this interview, John Tobin-de la Puente, former managing director and global head of sustainability at Credit Suisse, said that partnerships between banks and NGOs are evolving toward mutual exploration of business opportunities. However, a substantial rift remains between these two types of organizations. The divide is political, pragmatic and programmatic. To reach large-scale solutions, Tobin said, NGOs must work with profit-motivated businesspeople.

A tentative new relationship between Cuba and the United States, which were formerly at odds, may help build conservation finance and research opportunities in Cuba. Cuba, the “Pearl of the Antilles,” is one of the most important biodiversity hotspots worldwide, being the most biologically dense and diverse island in the Caribbean – with some of the most pristine beaches, the largest and densest forests, and the healthiest reefs.

In this interview, Lorenzo Bernasconi, senior associate director of innovative finance and impact investing at The Rockefeller Foundation, shared his perspective on the organization’s grant-making strategy around climate solutions.

It can be a murky process for managers to delve into the performance of their corporate investments in environmental conservation and track their outcomes. Now, two tools, IRIS and iPAR, can work together to provide a visually attractive way to watch how these investments are performing. iPAR was released for public use on April 26.