Bloomberg

September 28, 2022
Almost $1.9 trillion. That’s the amount Moody’s Investors Service says is at stake as biodiversity loss intensifies nature-related risks.

With financial markets currently under siege, concerns about biodiversity probably aren’t the first thing that comes to mind for panicked investors. But the long-term ramifications of a depleted natural world are potentially devastating.

High-risk sectors such as coal and metals mining, as well as oil and gas exploration and production, will likely face greater regulatory and investor scrutiny as every day passes. Companies that lack credible management strategies in this arena face the prospect of not only reputational damage, but also serious financial repercussions, Moody’s wrote in a 14-page report.

“Risks such as ecosystem health, biodiversity loss and natural resource management are rising up the policy and investor agenda,” said Rahul Ghosh, managing director of environmental, social and governance issues at Moody’s.

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BBC

March 16, 2022
Made up of 115 islands dotting the Indian Ocean off East Africa, Seychelles is known as a global hotspot for biodiversity. With as much as 85% of its animals and 45% of its plant species considered endemic, the archipelago is sometimes called the "Galapagos of the Indian Ocean". And both on land and in the ocean, different groups are working to preserve this ecological paradise.

This year, after creating a sophisticated zoning plan and completing extensive conversations with representatives from the country's tourism, fishing, petroleum and conservation efforts, the island nation is prepared to fully implement the landmark Marine Spatial Planning Initiative it announced several years ago: to protect 30% of its ocean territory. Tourism, climate change and other factors have already greatly impacted the environment of the Seychelles' more populated "Inner Islands", so this agreement – part of a deal to write off its national debt in exchange for conservation measures – is now aimed at protecting its 72 low-lying coralline "Outer Islands" from development before it's too late.

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The Straits Times

September 29, 2021
Nature is not, and cannot be, a passive victim of economic development, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said on Wednesday (Sept 29).

Not only does nature help make city life more liveable, it can also contribute to mankind's fight against climate change, he said, urging delegates gathered at the Ecosperity Week sustainability conference to take a fresh perspective on the natural environment.

The three-day conference is convened by Singapore's Temasek investment company for policymakers, investors, non-government groups and businesses, and is being held in a hybrid format with some attendees gathered at Marina Bay Sands. Wednesday marks the second day of the conference.

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Campaign For Nature

August 24, 2021

Africa’s prosperity depends on preserving its vast natural wealth, yet the continent’s natural capital stocks are dwindling rapidly, concludes a new report released today by the German government.  

The report, one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of the strong links between Africa’s development and nature protection, is the latest study to lay out evidence that economic recovery and nature protection are closely intertwined. It emphasizes that investing in nature is a critical development strategy, with benefits that are 8-9 times the costs.

Written by a team of researchers from Germany, Morocco, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and Côte d’Ivoire, the study shows that the continent’s most important economic sectors--including agriculture, fishing, tourism and hydropower--will thrive if nature is protected. The study also points to the critical role nature plays in building resilience against the impacts of climate change, including natural hazards and disasters.   

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Reuters

The global economy faces annual losses of $2.7 trillion by 2030 if ecological tipping points are reached and countries fail to invest more in protecting and restoring nature, the World Bank said on Thursday, calling for a greener COVID-19 recovery.

In its first “Economic Case for Nature” report, the bank looked at how many economies rely on biodiversity and how they would cope if certain services provided by nature collapsed. It found that sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia would be worst hit.

The study identified key “ecosystem services” that it said were close to tipping points, including wild pollinators and provision of food from marine fisheries and timber from native forests.

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Campaign For Nature

July 1, 2021
A  World Bank report released today argues that policies safeguarding nature deliver a long list of valuable benefits, including pollination, food provision and timber from native forests, that deliver a win-win for biodiversity and economies. The Economic Case for Nature finds that if the world fails to protect nature, we could lose $2.7 trillion in global GDP annually, with countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia particularly hard hit.  

Building off recent reports laying out the economic benefits of protecting nature and following a major proclamation by G7 nations that protecting nature is an urgent priority, the report uses a first-of-its-kind analysis to reveal the extent to which valuing and protecting nature is a key development issue.

It makes the case that nature-smart policies that preserve ecosystem service benefits would increase global GDP by $50-150 billion compared to business as usual and reduce the risk of ecosystem collapse and an associated potential reduction in GDP of 2.3%. Other reports have highlighted additional benefits of protecting nature, including the expansion of nature-based tourism, which is an important source of economic growth in many developing countries. 

The report notes that ambitious targets, like the global effort to protect 30% of land and ocean by 2030, are achievable and play a crucial role in unlocking these benefits.  

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PhysOrg

March 8, 2021
The economic benefits of conserving or restoring natural sites "outweigh" the profit potential of converting them for intensive human use, according to the largest-ever study comparing the value of protecting nature at particular locations with that of exploiting it.

A research team led by the University of Cambridge and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) analysed dozens of sites—from Kenya to Fiji and China to the UK—across six continents. A previous breakthrough study in 2002 only had information for five sites.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, come just weeks after a landmark report by Cambridge Professor Partha Dasgupta called for the value of biodiversity to be placed at the heart of global economics.

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UN News

March 2, 2021
The UN chief highlighted that the global economy increased almost fivefold in the past fifty years, but that growth was at a massive cost to the environment. 

“Nature’s resources still do not figure in countries’ calculations of wealth. The current system is weighted towards destruction, not preservation”, he said. 

“The bottom line … is that we need to transform how we view and value nature. We must reflect nature’s true value in all our policies, plans and economic systems”, Mr. Guterres urged, adding that by doing so, investment can be directed into actions that protect and restore nature. 

“The rewards will be immense”, he said. 

The call by the Secretary-General comes as countries convened at the UN Statistical Commission are set to deliberate a new statistical framework to measure economic prosperity and human well-being, which includes the contributions of nature. 

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Forbes

October 6, 2020
There is no future for business as usual. Our current economic system, which arguably has succeeded in creating unprecedented economic output, wealth and human welfare over the past 70 years, has led to exacerbated social inequalities and loss of nature at an extent that threatens the stability of our economies and societies – and could maybe even lead to a collapse of civilisation as we know it.

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World Economic Forum

July 14, 2020
The Future of Nature and Business, the second of three reports in the World Economic Forum’s New Nature Economy series, provides the practical insights needed to take leadership in shifting towards a much needed nature-positive economy.

As the world prepares to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting crisis, we are presented with an unprecedented clarion call, and opportunity, to change the way we eat, live, grow, build and power our lives to achieve a carbon-neutral, ‘nature-positive’ economy and halt biodiversity loss by 2030. Business as usual is no longer an option.

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Asia Times

July 10, 2020
In the most comprehensive report to date on the economic implications of protecting nature, more than 100 economists and scientists find that the global economy would benefit from the establishment of far more protected areas on land and at sea than exist today.

The report considers various scenarios of protecting at least 30% of the planet to show that the benefits outweigh the costs by a ratio of at least 5-to-1. It offers new evidence that the nature conservation sector drives economic growth, delivers key non-monetary benefits, and is a net contributor to a resilient global economy.

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Phys.org

July 8, 2020
In the most comprehensive report to date on the economic implications of protecting nature, over 100 economists and scientists find that the global economy would benefit from the establishment of far more protected areas on land and at sea than exist today. The report considers various scenarios of protecting at least 30% of the world's land and ocean to find that the benefits outweigh the costs by a ratio of at least 5-to-1. The report offers new evidence that the nature conservation sector drives economic growth, delivers key non-monetary benefits and is a net contributor to a resilient global economy.

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Latercera

July 9, 2020
A recent report ensures that the conservation, restoration and creation of protected areas that cover around 30% of biodiversity and nature - terrestrial and marine - would generate enormous economic and financial benefits on a global scale and, furthermore, avoid the alarming collapse of the natural world that now threatens the extinction of up to a million species. Although for this, it is necessary, it is necessary to increase the investment to approximately 140 billion dollars on average in the next ten years, versus the 24 billion dollars today.

The study called " Protection of 30% of the planet for nature: costs, benefits and economic implications " , was prepared with the work of more than 100 scientists and economists who are part of the Campaign for Nature and Peoples (promoted by National Geographic and the Wyss Foundation). This is the most comprehensive global assessment of the financial and economic impacts of protected areas to date, and considers sectors such as agriculture, fisheries and forestry.

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WEF Blog

July 8, 2020
[…] A comprehensive report, Protecting 30% of the planet for nature: costs, benefits and economic implications, has arrived just in time. It concludes that the benefits of protecting 30% of the world’s land and ocean outweigh the costs by a factor of at least 5:1. This economic assessment follows the urgent call from scientists to protect at least 30% of the earth’s land and sea by 2030 to halt the collapse of biodiversity.

The IMF estimates that $10 trillion has been spent so far on official COVID-19 support measures worldwide, and forecasts global GDP will contract by an unprecedented 4.9% in 2020. Protecting 30% of the world’s land and ocean would require just 0.016% of global GDP. This seems like a very low insurance premium and incredibly safe bet on a system that has proven its sound productivity for over 3 billion years.

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CBC

July 8, 2020
With Earth's wildlife now facing an extinction crisis, a group of economists and scientists is hoping to persuade governments that it pays to protect nature.

Specifically, expanding areas under conservation could yield a return of at least $5 for every $1 spent just by giving nature more room to thrive.

That in turn would boost agricultural and forestry yields, improve freshwater supplies, preserve wildlife and help fight climate change — all of which would boost global economic output on average by about $337 billion ($250 billion US) annually, the group of more than 100 researchers argues in a paper published online Wednesday by The Campaign for Nature, a coalition of conservation organizations from around the world.

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