New York: Nine foundations on Wednesday pledged a total of $5 billion to protect and conserve 30 percent of the planet by 2030 – marking the largest-ever private funding commitment to biodiversity.
The foundations aim to create and expand conserved and protected spaces while drawing on the leadership and management capabilities of Indigenous people on the ground.
Their goals align with the “30×30” initiative proposed by the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People – a 70-member, intergovernmental group that aims to protect at least 30 percent of the world’s lands and oceans by 2030.
The foundations – which include the Bezos Earth Fund, established by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos – first announced their funding commitment on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
The nine organisations include: Arcadia, Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Nia Tero, Rainforest Trust, Re:wild, Wyss Foundation, and the Rob and Melani Walton Foundation.
The event also included participants from Finance for Biodiversity Pledge that gathers 75 financial institutions from around the globe — collectively worth 12 trillion euros in assets — committing to protecting and restoring biodiversity through their finance activities and investments.
The announcements send a strong signal to countries to step up their ambition to protect and restore nature ahead of the COP26 climate conference taking place in Glasgow, UK, in November and the COP15 biodiversity conference taking place in Kunming, China in April/May 2022.
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