Poovi Pillay, Executive Head of Corporate Social Investment (CSI) at Nedbank explains: ‘Conservation finance solutions are strategies and actions that unlock and direct multiple sources of finance for national and local conservation-based finance plans and projects to achieve high-impact landscape and seascape conservation, collectively known as naturescapes. The sources of finance include governments, corporates, asset management companies, sustainability investors, conservation organisations and conservation trust funds.’

‘Too often, excellent ideas don’t have the critical ingredients to make them work, which is what sets the Coalition apart’, says WWF-SA’s Business Development Unit Head, Justin Smith, whose role includes sustainable finance. ‘This is about real money reaching nature champions – individuals and organisations – to help them manage our naturescapes.’

‘Our target is to unlock half a billion US dollars in finance solutions for the conservation of 100 million hectares in Africa by 2030, which will at the same time benefit the livelihoods of over 100 000 people’, Stevens explains.

The finance solution model can be applied to a wide range of conservation initiatives with a focus on high biodiversity areas and the associated communities. It includes tax incentives for protected areas and endangered species, biodiversity credits, offsets for ecosystem and biome conservation, bonds for pollinators, green bankable projects and support for sustainable agriculture and conservation-focused development organisations, protected areas and other conservation area initiatives such as Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs).

Stevens says: ‘Over the past 4 years, we have developed a detailed finance model that has led to our incubating many more finance solutions than expected. We have already incubated 14 finance solutions, which are being implemented in 15 countries and 14 environments, with 33 replications in waiting.’

Because the target has become far bigger than anyone anticipated, the Coalition now has its own board and advisory council of experts, with WWF and Wilderness Foundation Africa continuing to play key roles.

‘Incubation is a 6-month process and one of the first incubators we did in South Africa was finance support for rhino conservation utilising the endangered species tax incentive for OECMs, which was entered into South African legislation in 2008 but never used,’ Smith explains. ‘We drew on this tax incentive to implement a sustainable finance pilot project for rhino conservation, with input from a number of conservation and tax specialists. It required a huge amount of effort from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, all the way up to the Minister.’

‘It has proved viable and from here we are able to amplify its reach to apply to all threatened species, while also creating candidate OECMs in South Africa with the requisite biodiversity management plans in place. Threatened species include lions, southern ground hornbills, and cycad and pelargonium species, to name a few,’ says Stevens.

To conserve the planet’s largest ecosystem, the ocean, this year the Coalition launched its first ever blue finance incubators for marine and ocean conservation and the associated livelihoods in the ocean realm. ‘It’s very exciting and the first one launched is an incubator for a Blue Outcomes Fund, with building blocks learnt from the Green Outcomes Fund (GOF),’ Stevens explains.

GOF is a first-of-its-kind structure that supports and incentivises local South African fund managers to increase investment in green small, medium and microenterprises (SMMEs).

The Blue Outcomes Fund incubator was launched in July 2024 and is currently discussing which elements of the blue economy it would finance to advance the sustainable use of marine resources and support blue economy jobs and livelihoods. The viability report will be ready in January 2025.

In support of its Africa-wide mandate, at the end of September 2024, the Coalition, in partnership with the African Leadership University, launched the first African-led inventory of finance solutions for nature. This online platform will enable everybody to access the resources and materials on the finance solutions developed to contribute to effective and enduring naturescape conservation across Africa.

‘Our impact currently covers 15 African countries, with 14 finance solutions in our inventory,’ Stevens explains. ‘An estimated US$30 million has already been accessed for pilot projects, and the amount will hopefully be scaled up to US$100 million for naturescapes and green and blue outcome funds.’

A further incubator outlined what a credible biodiversity credit system would look like, and whether, like carbon credits, they could be bought and sold on the voluntary market. If they can, the Coalition would assist selected biodiversity pilot projects to sell their credits and corporates to buy them and show them in their nature-related financial reporting.

‘We held the first biodiversity credit buyers round table in Africa in November 2023 in Sandton’, says Stevens. ‘It was attended by different banks, asset management companies, development finance institutions and biodiversity credit project developers. Key relationships have been developed and we are highly motivated by this and what the Coalition can achieve for South Africa, the continent and globally.’

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