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TOP STORY

INTERVIEW: Biodiversity registry targets five standards and 40 projects by 2025

A biodiversity registry based in Colombia is aiming to incorporate five standards and as many as 40 credit-issuing projects in the next three years as it seeks to become a global example for nature crediting, several senior members told Carbon Pulse.

MARKET

Taskforce paper gives recommendations for biodiversity crediting regulation

The Taskforce on Nature Markets has called for the unitisation of biodiversity outcomes in a paper outlining recommendations for regulation, with the document underlining the importance of separating crediting and offsetting practices and urging governments to take a proactive role in such markets.

Australian banks developing digital biodiversity credit marketplace

Australia’s Reserve Bank (RBA) and Commonwealth Bank (CBA) are developing a digital exchange for the nation’s emerging biodiversity market, which they hope will make the marketplace more efficient.

UNEP report urges finance sector to invest in biodiversity credits

Biodiversity credits are one of the key vehicles for financial institutions to channel capital into nature protection and restoration, according to a UNEP report published this month that noted how investors represent a vital source of funding to meet the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

New partnership readies autonomous drone to scale up eDNA marine sampling

A new technology resembling a waterborne drone aims to independently collect environmental DNA (eDNA) from the world’s oceans, providing scientists and other stakeholders with the data they need to track and manage local biodiversity at scale.

Carbon revenue seen insufficient to move the needle on marine ecosystem restoration

Blue carbon is increasingly being hailed as a crucial driver for projects that restore kelp and other marine ecosystems, but a study published this week found that the potential value of kelp forest carbon sequestration is dwarfed by the other ecosystem services they provide.

BUSINESS & FINANCE

Eating it up: Food industry tops biodiversity impact short list

Just 20 food producers account for almost a fifth of the biodiversity impact from a group of the 250 biggest nature loss contributors in the world, a study has found.

Non-profit receives $60 mln to remove deforestation from crucial supply chains

A Canada-based non-profit has received $60 million from a funding initiative to scale up low-impact and circular clothing, paper, and packaging solutions that will eliminate the use of ancient and endangered forests from the supply chains of those industries, it announced Monday.

Businesses should minimise their biodiversity impacts, while looking to help make progress elsewhere -experts

Businesses seeking to minimise their impacts on biodiversity can simultaneously look to enhance ecosystems that function beyond their value chains, a webinar heard Thursday, pointing out an emerging agreement on what a “nature positive” business strategy really means.

Nature’s decline poses a risk to more than half of global GDP -PwC

More than half of global GDP depends on nature and is therefore exposed to risk posed by the degrading state of nature and ecosystems, one of the largest financial auditors worldwide, PwC, published in its latest research on Wednesday.

L’Oreal nature regeneration fund announces three investments

France-headquartered cosmetics firm L’Oreal on Thursday announced it has invested in three projects related to biochar, reforestation, and mangroves through its €50-million Fund for Nature Regeneration.

Large Scottish estates sold for rewilding in landmark nature-based debt deal

UK-based Oxygen Conservation has acquired two large Scottish estates totalling 23,000 acres to develop a major rewilding project, using a £20.6 million bank loan in what’s being called Britain’s largest-ever nature-based commercial debt deal.

POLICY

G7 commits to increase biodiversity funding, provides little detail

G7 ministers over the weekend committed to increasing their international spending on biodiversity and to implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework, though a communique from the Sapporo summit was light on details.

MARKET

Oversight – The Amerindian People’s Association, an activist group for Indigenous peoples, has lodged a grievance with jurisdictional REDD+ standards body Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) over claims that the Guyanese government did not receive consent from communities to distribute tens of millions of avoided deforestation carbon offsets. (Carbon Pulse)

Come and get it – Farmers in Europe are being offered interest-free loans to finance regenerative agriculture on the condition they repay the debt by generating carbon credits for investors. HeavyFinance, a European climate tech startup investment marketplace for the agricultural industry, has launched so-called Green Loans, which it estimates will facilitate €7-10 mln of debt capital in the first year. (Carbon Pulse)

And kicking – In Australia, hand and body product producer al.ive has teamed up with biodiversity credit firm Wilderlands in the run-up to Earth Day, agreeing to buy a set of Wilderlands’ credits generated at the Alleena conservation project in New South Wales. Customers buying al.ive products on Earth Day can then access those credits to commemorate the occasion. Wilderlands, targeting private consumers rather than large corporate buyers, recently had a similar arrangement with the organisers of Adelaide Festival. Each of its credits represent 20 years of protection of 1 square metre from one of the company’s portfolio of nature protection projects.

BUSINESS & FINANCE

Unfortunate – As Brazil seeks ways to protect its crucial Amazon forest, a new study shows that excusing private landowners from conserving their precious land has come at a steep cost to global sustainability. In last week’s Communications Earth & Environment, scientists at Michigan State University’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (MSU-CSIS) as well as Brazil and the UK found that since 2012 more than half of the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has taken place on designated private conservation areas within rural private properties. However, those conservation areas were designed by the national conservation forest policy aimed at restoring natural vegetation. (phys.org)

Getting started – In the UK, Cambridge-based Pivotal, a biodiversity data company that offers consumers and businesses information about investments that will benefit nature, announced on Wednesday that it has raised £4.5 mln in a seed round of funding. According to Pivotal, the funding will help reinvent the economics of tracking biodiversity and create a platform to measure biodiversity at scale. The round was led by London-based Octopus Ventures, a venture capital investor in the UK and Europe. AENU, The Clearing Ventures, and existing investor Pale Blue Dot also joined the round. (Silicon Canals)

Wading in – With $8.4 mln in funding from USAID, Tanzania has launched the Heshimu Bahari project, reports Afrik21. Named after the Swahili phrase for “respect the oceans”, the five-year project aims to strengthen the conservation of Tanzania’s coastal biodiversity through measures such as promoting gender-equitable development approaches, addressing overfishing, and mitigating the impact of climate change that is disrupting ecosystems and livelihoods by damaging tourism potential.

POLICY

Forest win – The European Parliament approved a landmark deforestation law on Wednesday to ban imports into the EU of coffee, beef, soy, and other commodities if they are linked to the destruction of the world’s forests. The law will require companies that sell goods into the EU to produce a due diligence statement and “verifiable” information proving their goods were not grown on land deforested after 2020, or risk hefty fines. The rules aim to eliminate deforestation from the supply chains of a range of everyday items sold in Europe. It will apply to soy, beef, palm oil, wood, cocoa, coffee, rubber, charcoal, and derived products including leather, chocolate, and furniture. (Reuters)

Backing the law – A group of companies and industry organisations – including major manufacturers such as Cemex, Heidelberg Materials, and Holcim, as well as Coca-Cola Europe – this week released a joint statement backing the EU’s proposed Nature Restoration Law. The law is “a generation’s opportunity to take concrete and effective action to reverse the biodiversity and climate crises by restoring EU land and sea areas at large scale”, they said, calling for “the urgent adoption of an ambitious and legally-binding EU Nature Restoration Law to bring nature back to Europe”.

Green, green grass – The state government in Tamil Nadu in India is implementing a biodiversity conservation programme to battle climate change, targeting coastal marine ecosystems. The strategy includes plans to sequester some 400,000 tCO2 by restoring 600 ha of seagrass, 300 ha of seaweed, and increasing mangrove cover over an area of 1,050 ha. As part of that plan, the State Forest Department has now proposed a project seeking to restore degraded seagrass meadows in the Gulf of Mannar. (DT Next)

SCIENCE & TECH

Out of reach – The ambitious targets to halt the decline in nature agreed in the Global Biodiversity Framework may already be slipping out of reach, according to a study by the Institute of Zoology in London. The study, published in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B, analysed trends in populations of more than 600 different species of birds and mammals. The scientists found that past modelling work had largely ignored time lags of decades before the effects of drivers such as climate change and habitat loss kick in. This means we may be further down the line towards biodiversity loss than we thought. (BBC)

What’s this, then? – One of the largest seagrass beds in the UK, home to seahorses, pipefish, and scallops and a highly effective carbon sink, has been identified off the south coast of Cornwall. An acoustic study of St Austell Bay carried out by a survey boat pinpointed 359 ha of seagrass hugging the coastline, and divers sent in to examine the site close up recorded 56 species living in the rich habitat. Cornwall Wildlife Trust described it as a hugely positive find but said work was needed to protect the bed and further surveys should be carried out to find out if there were other beds in nearby areas. (Guardian)

Handling the heat – In Taiwan, Delta Electronics and the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium have teamed up to breed heat-tolerant coral that can cope with increasingly frequent marine heatwaves, they announced this week. Delta has developed a coral incubator and coral vertical breeding system, to which an LED light system will be applied. In the first stage, the project plans to complete the collection and incubation of 10 types of coral from southern Taiwan.

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