With the launch of new biodiversity preservation funding mechanisms, the European Union tasked CIRAD with an appraisal of these innovative instruments in Mexico and Europe. This resulted in three reports that pave the way for a more in-depth study with a view to boosting their implementation on a bilateral basis.
Investing in responsible fishery, funding crop pollination, natural water treatment or erosion prevention, and so on... Funding biodiversity conservation because of the services it renders to humankind is a concept that is currently booming. Such funding mechanisms are still disparate and largely unstudied, but they still have significant potential to preserve ecosystems and the services associated with them.
Natural capital economics
The European Union (EU), which was intrigued by the phenomenon, tasked CIRAD with an appraisal of these new natural capital funding tools. The aim was to identify innovative mechanisms and pinpoint how they were being implemented in order to support the process. The study, conducted over a year hand-in-hand with the Ibero-American University in Mexico and the Institute for European Environmental Policy, resulted in the publication of three reports: an exploration of the tools used in Mexico, of those used in the EU, and a comparative summary of experiences in the two regions (see box).
A raft of mechanisms
First of all, the experts defined and stabilized a typology of different biodiversity funding tools. They distinguished between financial mechanisms, such as impact investing or ecological taxation, and economic instruments such as payments for environmental services (PES) or certification. They then identified economic activities compatible with biodiversity preservation. Some are already well established, such as operations in favour of better water resource management or responsible fishing cooperatives, while others are still in their infancy, such as payments for crop pollination.
CIRAD, a hinge between stakeholders
By virtue of its multi-site, multi-partner approach, CIRAD acted as a hinge between the various players surveyed, from the private, public, academic and political sectors. Driss Ezzine de Blas, a socioeconomist with CIRAD who coordinated the project, stresses that "this was a "radar" project for the EU, precondition for drafting more specific research and development projects. For instance, we now know that small-scale funding would be sufficient to test the cost-effectiveness of investing in activities such as responsible fishing cooperatives, a risk that the private sector is not yet prepared to take."
Promoting impact investments
Against a backdrop of ongoing economic crisis, the first sectors to be sacrificed are generally the environment and biodiversity. But banks today are interested in cost-effective investments with a social and/or ecological impact (impact investing). It would be appropriate to push the private and financial sector towards greater internalization of investment in protecting biodiversity and natural capital. The aim is therefore cost effectiveness, but does it have to be conventionally economic? One thing's for certain: these emerging mechanisms raise many issues, paving the way for a vast field of research!