Open letter: “The $700 billion for nature restoration is not based on scientific analysis”

Published in the Italian newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera.

In November 2024, REDD-Monitor posted a letter written to The Guardian about the “US$700 billion biodiversity funding gap”. The letter was in response to reporting by Phoebe Weston from the Convention on Biological Diversity, COP16, which was held in Cali, Colombia from 21 October to 1 November 2024.

Weston’s article started with the claim that “Experts agree that the world needs $700bn a year to restore nature”.

But as the letter to The Guardian noted,

In fact, the $700 billion is a bogus figure devised by US conservation corporations in collaboration with investment banks, to promote private investment and market-based mechanisms.

The Guardian did not publish the letter.

However, with the COP16 negotiations resuming in Rome today, Survival International’s Italian office sent the letter (with two additional paragraphs) to Il Corriere della Sera, Italy’s largest circulation newspaper.

Il Corriere della Sera published the letter today. An English translation is posted below.

Meanwhile, Survival International has updated its analysis of the systemic problems with the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund. Only one of the forty projects so far approved will likely be of benefit to Indigenous people and is clearly directed to them. That represents only 4% of the total allocated by the fund.

The fund is heavily biased towards the funding of Protected Areas despite the human rights abuses associated with this type of conservation model.

Survival International has also set up a petition opposing fortress conservation:

Here is an English translation of the letter published by Il Corriere della Sera:

“The $700 billion for nature restoration is not based on scientific analysis. Let’s strengthen Indigenous communities”

We, the undersigned, are concerned about the uncritical promotion of the need for billions in funding for biodiversity and the diversion of policy from the real issues. In its “Making Peace with Nature” appeal to the Italian government on 19 February 2025 ahead of COP16 in Rome, WWF Italy says that globally, “between $722 billion and $967 billion a year would be needed to sustainably manage biodiversity and maintain the integrity of ecosystems,” but, it continues, “the goal of closing the gap in global funding needed to protect and restore biodiversity is far from being achieved.”

The statement echoes what various media outlets have already reported during COP16 in Cali calling attention to the pitiful efforts by governments and international organisations to address the biodiversity crisis: “Experts agree that the world needs $700 billion a year to restore nature — but no one knows where the money will come from, and anger is growing because rich countries are not paying their fair share.”

The role of high finance

We are extremely concerned that this “funding gap” is now being seen as the problem that drives everything else. In fact, the $700 billion is a bogus figure devised by US conservation corporations, in collaboration with investment banks, to promote private investment and market-based mechanisms. That delivering on this target has become the critical issue at COP16 demonstrates how big finance has taken over the world of conservation.

Alternative proposals

The $700 billion figure was not derived from careful scientific analysis. It was a ‘back of the envelope’ study that cherrypicked and misrepresented the research of others. According to those who chose this figure, closing the gap requires biodiversity offsets thirty times what they are today and a tenfold growth in the amount raised by green bonds. This would hand conservation to financial markets and asset management companies, which are among the most inappropriate stewards of nature. Alternative proposals for conservation, including strengthening land rights for Indigenous communities and promoting small-scale farming and fishing, do not require massive financial capital.

A dangerous distraction

Believing that a vast amount of money can save biodiversity is a dangerous distraction, although convenient for corporations, conservation NGOs and governments. It encourages equating the destruction of nature with poverty rather than affluence. It also obscures discussions on the need to consume less, forgo profits to save nature and reduce the power of multinational corporations. That so many organisations are consumed in arguments about money shows how far the international community is from finding solutions to the biodiversity crisis.

Andre Standing, Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements
Nick Hildyard, the Corner House
Jutta Kill, World Rainforest Movement
Chris Lang, REDD-Monitor
Fiore Longo, Survival International
Frederic Hache, Green Finance Observatory
Hugh Govan, Independent
Clive Spash, Chair of Public Policy and Governance at WU Vienna