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TOP STORY

Australia at risk of accepting biodiversity decline in offset rules, expert says

Clear definitions around baselines in biodiversity standards are essential to be able to successfully measure outcomes and avoid nature decline, especially regarding offsets, an expert told a conference in Canberra Wednesday.

MARKET

UK finance and charity collaboration launches voluntary nature market principles

A group of organisations on Wednesday published the Nature Markets Principles, which contain a number of supply and demand-side principles for buyers and sellers of nature-oriented markets in the UK, with the intention to combat corporate greenwashing and support high-integrity, science-based activities in lieu of relevant policy and regulation.

Australian project developer sees mismatch between biodiversity and ACCU project rules

Existing rules around environmental planting carbon projects can make them unsuitable to achieve biodiversity outcomes, a project developer told a conference in Canberra.

BUSINESS & FINANCE

TNFD nature recommendations more solid than ESRS, says head of EU biodiversity group

The recommendations from the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) are more consistent than the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) requirements, the lead of an EU-established group has said.

Nature startup raises €1.7 mln to develop corporate biodiversity reporting platform

A Germany-based startup company has raised €1.7 million in early stage funding, hoping to capitalise on a growing list of voluntary and mandatory requirements for corporates to address biodiversity loss and impact.

Capitals Coalition: Partner with SMEs to improve nature action

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) should partner with larger companies in their supply chain to boost action on nature, the private sector Capitals Coalition has said.

POLICY

Skills shortage a key barrier to nature-based solutions, says EU official

A shortage of skills in the workforce is one of the greatest obstacles holding back the scaling up of nature-based solutions worldwide, according to a European Commission official.

Australian NGOs call for whole-of-government funding for biodiversity conservation

Conservation groups have delivered a statement to the Australian parliament calling for “urgent and sustained” funding toward efforts to conserve and restore biodiversity, alongside wider calls for greater transparency in the country’s environmental law reform process.

PROJECTS

Germany-backed €12.9 mln agricultural biodiversity programme expands

A programme backed by around €12.9 million of funding from German government agencies for boosting biodiversity on agricultural land has expanded to another state.

MARKET

Triangle talks – Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Taskforce and Bermuda College are looking into what biodiversity credits could mean for the North Atlantic territory. Professors at the college highlighted that the island is located in the Sargasso Sea, responsible for producing 20% of the world’s oxygen, but that the island may not have sufficient land to generate enough carbon credits for them to be financially viable. The group will run a series of talks on biodiversity credits as an alternative option, with a vision to set up a Bermuda-based company to develop projects that they say could benefit multiple landscapes including agriculture and reef ecology. (Royal Gazette)

BUSINESS & FINANCE

Egyptian panda – Egypt has issued the first-ever yuan-denominated panda bond in China’s interbank market by an African country, worth CNY3.5 bln ($478.6 mln). Bank of China is the lead underwriter and bookkeeper of the panda bond, which has a term of three years and a nominal interest rate of 3.51%, the Beijing-based lender announced on Oct. 16. The proceeds of the bond will be used for climate-proofing agriculture, clean transportation, sustainable water, sanitation, government-subsidised housing, infrastructure, renewable energy, and biodiversity conservation, BOC added. Panda bonds are yuan-denominated bonds issued by overseas institutions in the Chinese mainland market. (Yicai)

Hey big spender – NatureScot, the Scottish nature agency, has awarded £4 mln to projects aiming to save threatened species, restore flower meadows, and reduce flooding, it announced Wednesday. The money was distributed through the Helping Nature fund, which is part of the £65 mln Nature restoration fund.

Shedding cash – US-based Bancorp Bank has pledged $1 mln in donations over three years to three watershed conservation initiatives, it announced this week. The New York Botanical Garden, Friends of the Big Sioux river in South Dakota, and Delaware Nature Society will be the recipients.

Below average – Research from MSCI suggests that investment funds with a biodiversity label or related strategy deliver lower returns than other thematic funds. The company reviewed 149 funds that are responsible for $60 bln assets under management, 15 of which were “pure-play biodiversity-labelled funds”. Most of the 15 biodiversity-specific funds were launched in 2022, highlighting a surge in the topic even if returns have not yet been realised for the thematic area. (IPE)

POLICY

Finnish funding – The government of Finland has not allocated enough funding for nature conservation, according to Janne Kotiaho, chairperson of the independent expert-led Finnish Nature Panel. Despite commitments to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 the government has allocated about a third less funding for nature conservation than its predecessor, according to Kotiaho. The proposed funding cuts are particularly worrying for water bodies, with over €40 mln cut from water management efforts, the panel said. The government’s budget draft is presently being discussed in parliament. (Helsinki Times)

Disposed – Around 21 species of animals and plants have been removed from the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) after they went extinct. The move to delist the extinct species began in Sep. 2021. Among the species that were delisted were the Bachman’s warbler, a bright yellow bird once common in Florida, South Carolina, and other southern states, eight types of southeastern mussels, and the Little Mariana fruit bat. Lindsay Rosa, vice-president of conservation research and innovation at Defenders of Wildlife, told the Guardian that this extinction was one of the permanent consequences of failing to address issues around biodiversity and climate change.

Not sensitive enough – The chief minister of the Indian state of Goa, Pramod Sawant, has urged the central government to drop 40 villages from being categorised as Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs) since they do not meet the criteria set out by the ministry of environment, forests and climate change. The ministry has identified 99 villages as ESAs, which means there’s a ban on red category industries being set up in these villages. Sawant argued that 40 of those 99 villages do not meet the criteria. The state comes under a global biodiversity hotspot within the Western Ghats and most villages are excluded from damaging industries, The Hindustan Times reported.

SCIENCE & TECH

Topping the wrong table – Marine biologists have warned that the marine life of Asian countries would be affected the most due to climate change. By 2100 the highest proportion of fish species, 86%, within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Asian nations is likely to be at high or critical climate risk, compared to 77% in North America, 73% in Oceania, and 71% in Africa, a conference in India heard this week. By this period, the greatest proportion of high or critical risk species is likely to be in the Indian high seas, followed by the North Pacific Oceans, they added. (investing.com)

In trouble – According to an International Union for Conservation of Nature survey, 44 exotic invasive plant species were recorded in five protected forests in Bangladesh. Of them, seven species were found to be harmful, with significant environmental impacts on protected forest areas. As a signatory of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the country is committed to protecting ecosystems and biodiversity of flora and fauna, and to check the number and reduce the negative impacts of the identified alien invasive plant species on ecology and environment, the government has taken five strategic management plans. (Mongabay)

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