Presentation Webinars from CFA Incubator Cohort 3

CFA and OCTO are hosted a series of webinars

The Webinar Series features five (5) webinars each with two projects per session that present the main conclusions and finance solutions developed by the 10 projects of CFA Incubator Cohort 3 during 2025.

The Webinar series, co-hosted with OCTO, is part of the CFA Incubator, supported by Milkywire’s Nature Transformation Fund, in collaboration with Klarna.

Meet the finalists of round 3

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🌱 Webinar 1: Making Conservation Investable: Impact Bonds for People and Nature

🎣 The Salmon Impact Bond

Presented by Ross Dixon & Audrey Maria Popa (Coast Funds) and Raven Walkus (Wuikinuxv First Nation).
An Indigenous-led initiative advancing salmon habitat restoration and community development in Canada.

🔹 Karukinka’s Impact Bond and Sustainable Finance (WCS Chile)
Presented by Melissa Carmody (WCS Chile)
A diversified sustainable finance approach supporting the conservation of Karukinka Park in Tierra del Fuego, Chile.

📅 Tuesday, January 20 - ⏰ 11 am EST | 8 am PST | 1 pm CLST | 4 pm UTC | 4 pm GMT

👉 Register here.

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🌊 Webinar 2: Financing the Sustainable Transition of Small-Scale Fisheries

🐟 Marine Conservation Incentives
Presented by Hollie Booth (University of Oxford & Kebersamaan Untuk Lautan)
A scalable, evidence-based incentive model being piloted in Indonesia to protect marine biodiversity while safeguarding the livelihoods and wellbeing of coastal communities.

🔹 BlueMove Fund for Small-Scale Fisheries in Africa
Presented by Camille Richer and Yousr Benfadhel (BlueMove / BlueSeeds)
A new nature-positive fund combining technical assistance and concessional finance to support sustainable fishing, regenerative blue economy activities, and MPAs in Tunisia and Senegal.

📅 Thursday, January 22 - ⏰ 9 am EST | 6 am PST | 2 pm UTC | 3 pm CET | 10 pm WITA

👉 Register here.

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🌍 Webinar 3: Sustainable Finance in Africa: Tourism and Blended Finance Solutions

✈️ Global Green Visa®
Presented by Bhalin Singh (Prajna Ventures)
An innovative mechanism that embeds a transparent conservation contribution into national e-visa systems—transforming tourism into a consistent, scalable revenue stream for biodiversity.

🌿 Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCA) Infrastructure Finance Facility
Presented by Onkemetse Nteta (IUCN)
A regional blended finance facility designed to mobilize long-term funding for conservation and infrastructure across TFCAs in Southern Africa.

📅 Monday, January 26 - ⏰ 9 am EST | 6 am PST | 2 pm UTC | 3 pm CET | 4 pm CAT/SAST

👉 Register here.

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🌍 Webinar 4: Trust Funds as Engines for Nature Finance: Debt Conversion in Cuba and a Biodiversity and Climate Fund in Madagascar and Africa

🔹 Debt Conversion for Nature and a Conservation Trust Fund in Cuba
Presented by Fernando Bretos (Cresta Coastal Network)
A pioneering effort to develop Cuba’s first debt conversion for nature and an independent Conservation Trust Fund, channeling fiscal savings into biodiversity conservation, climate adaptation, and sustainable fisheries.

🔹 Mitsiry Biodiversity and Climate Technical Assistance Facility
Presented by Blanda Andrimamy & Lea Méléard (Miarakap)
A blended finance approach combining a $50M investment fund with a dedicated technical assistance facility to support biodiversity-positive enterprises in Madagascar and Eastern & Southern Africa.

📅 Thursday, February 5 - ⏰ 9 am EST | 6 am PST | 2 pm UTC | 5 pm EAT

👉 Register here.

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🌍 Webinar 5: Making Conservation Enterprises Investable: Low-Impact Scallop Harvesting and Improving Biodiversity Outcome Tracking

🐚 Finance Solutions for Sustainable Scallop Fisheries
Presented by Tom Hooper (Fishtek Marine Ltd)
An innovative, low-impact method for harvesting scallops using pots as an alternative to damaging dredging.

🦜 The BirdsPlus Index
Presented by Eliot Miller (American Bird Conservancy)
A science-based tool to measure, report, and validate biodiversity outcomes for conservation finance, impact investing, and nature-positive action.

📅 Thursday, February 12 - ⏰ 12 pm EST | 9 am PST | 5 pm UTC | 5 pm GMT | 6 pm CET

👉 Register here.

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Announcing the 2025 CFA Incubator Cohort!

Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA) is proud to introduce the 10 outstanding projects selected for Round 3 of the CFA Incubator — a program that identifies, supports, and promotes innovative solutions to conservation finance challenges with high-impact potential.

After a rigorous three-stage review process involving expert judges from leading conservation and finance institutions, we are thrilled to welcome ten projects to our 2025 cohort. Five projects will receive grants of $25,000, while all projects will benefit from mentorship, technical assistance, and global exposure through CFA’s network. This third round of the CFA Incubator is being supported by the Nature Transformation Fund run by Milkywire, in collaboration with Klarna.

Selected for Grant Funding and Incubation

• The Salmon Impact Bond. A nature bond model supporting Indigenous-led salmon habitat restoration and community development in Wuikinuxv territory. Team: Eddy Adra, Tamara Isaak, Ross Dixon, Audrey Popa, Coast Funds, Canada; Danielle Shaw, Andra Forney, Wuikinuxv First Nation.

• ABC BirdsPlus Index. Developing a business strategy for the BirdPlus Index, a biodiversity monitoring tool leveraging bird sound recognition and AI to measure biodiversity and ecosystem health. Team: Corey Martignetti, Holly Robertson, and Eliot Miller, American Bird Conservancy, USA.

• Finance for incentive-based marine conservation in small-scale fisheries. Establishing and scaling sustainable finance to conserve marine megafauna (e.g., sharks, rays, turtles) through expanding a unique incentive-based program that  delivers positive outcomes for biodiversity and people in coastal communities. Lead: Hollie Booth, University Of Oxford & Kebersamaan Untuk Lautanuk, Indonesia/UK.

• Global Green Visa®️. Developing a national-level tourism levy linked to an impact bond to finance nature conservation. Team: Bhalin Singh and Cheryl Collins, Prajna Ventures, Rwanda/Luxembourg.

• Finance for Small Scale Fisheries in Africa. Innovative provision of technical assistance and microcredits to support positive outcomes for biodiversity and people in coastal communities in Africa. Team: Camille Richer, BlueMove; Thomas Binet, BlueSeeds, Tunisia & Senegal.

Selected for Incubation 

• Karukinka’s Impact Bond. Finance for peatland and forest protection in Karukinka Natural Park, Patagonia, through an outcome-based bond. Team: Melissa Carmody Lobo and Cristóbal Arredondo, WCS, Chile.

• Caribbean Debt Conversion. Exploring a debt conversion to unlock sustainable conservation finance in Cuba. Team: Fernando Bretos & Jim Tolisano, Cresta Coastal Network; Mark J. Spalding, the Ocean Foundation; Ulises Fernandez, CITMA, Cuba. 

• Finance solutions for sustainable scallop fisheries. Developing metrics and an associated finance system to transform scallop fisheries. Lead. Tom Hooper, Fishtek Marine LTD, UK.

• Mitsiry Biodiversity and Climate Trust Fund. Leveraging blended finance and technical assistance to grow biodiversity-focused small and medium-sized enterprises. Team: Koloina Ramaromandray, Lea Meleard & Emmanuel Cotsoyannis, Mirakap; Madagascar and Eastern & Southern Africa.

• Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCA) Infrastructure Impact Bond – A scalable approach to fund infrastructure in TFCAs. Lead: Onkemetse Nteta, IUCN, South Africa.

These projects showcase bold thinking where finance meets nature. Through approaches such as bonds, trust funds, credits, AI applications, and blended finance, they’re working to deliver tangible conservation outcomes and long-term sustainability. Together, they reflect the growing momentum in conservation finance, and we look forward to championing their progress and sharing their insights with our broader global network in the year ahead.

The Incubation period will run from May through February 2026, offering tailored support and mentorship to advance these ideas towards implementation. The CFA Incubator will hold a series of webinars presenting these ideas over the course of the incubation and will host presentations at global conferences. 

This year’s open call for proposals attracted 73 applications from 37 countries, reflecting a global interest in conservation finance innovation. Proposals were received from every major region: Africa had the most submissions, followed by Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, Europe, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Approximately 25% of proposals were led by women, and over 40% of teams included women in key roles, signaling encouraging trends in inclusion and diversity across the sector. 

2021 Land Accelerator Africa

Are you a land restoration entrepreneur? Do you know one?

In 2018, World Resources Institute (WRI) and Fledge launched the Land Accelerator, the world’s first training and mentorship program targeted specifically toward businesses that restore degraded forests, farmland, and pasture.

Women-led and youth-led companies, which may benefit from additional funding opportunities, are highly encouraged to apply!

In partnership with AFR100, World Resources Institute is excited to announce that the application cycle for the 2021 Land Accelerator Africa is open through March 31!

For the 2021 Africa cohort, we are embracing an exciting new approach.

1. From our applicants, the team will select Africa’s Top 100 Restoration Entrepreneurs, all of whom will benefit from extensive online training and networking for three months.

2. A panel of experts will then select the Top 10, who will benefit from one-on-one technical support, pitch their businesses to an online room of investors, and receive a $5,000 innovation grant.

The CFA Incubator - Update

The CFA recently closed (Jan 31, 2020) a call for proposals for its first round of virtual incubation.  The CFA Incubator will award 5 subgrants of $25,000 each and mentorship support to the top 5 proposals received.  Announcement of the successful proposals will be made next week. Many thanks to our partners and communications channels as well as all of the amazing conservation finance entrepreneurs whom applied. We received 75 fascinating and inspiring applications from a wide geography (42 countries) and diverse organizations with over a quarter being led by women.  The overwhelming positive response to this Call combined with the quality of the proposals received has encouraged us to expand the mentoring support for projects to an additional 10 proposals.  These additional 10 chosen projects will be supported through CFA Staff and Member mentors.  All 15 projects accepted into the CFA Incubator will have the opportunity to present their ideas during the World Conservation Congress at the CFA Pavilion. We are very excited to begin the mentorship process!

 If you are interested in being a mentor and are not part of the CFA Innovation Working Group, please join the Working Group via this link.   

The following is a quick summary of the applications received: 

The diversity of applicant organizations, their geographic distribution and ideas that they contain are truly representative of the CFA membership and indicate the growing interest in the CFA from conservation finance practitioners.  We are pleased to see such a positive response and believe that we can build a solid program that will stimulate additional conservation finance activities. The CFA Incubator Technical Review Committee is currently reviewing all applications using the previously agreed upon scoring criteria. Recipients will be announced shortly.

The CFA is currently seeking additional technical and financial partnerships for the CFA Incubator, building from our current partnerships that include:

·       Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial (FFEM)

·       MAVA Foundation

·       Conservation International Ventures

·       Posaidon

Please contact David Meyers, Executive Director of the CFA for further information.

Again, if you are interested in mentoring one of these amazing concepts but are not yet part of the Innovation Working Group, please join the Working Group by visiting the Innovation WG page on the CFA website or contacting the Secretariat.

What We're Reading: Progress in natural capital accounting for ecosystems

From ScienceMag:

“Reversing the ongoing degradation of the planet’s ecosystems requires timely and detailed monitoring of ecosystem change and uses. Yet, the System of National Accounts (SNA), first developed in response to the economic crisis of the 1930s and used by statistical offices worldwide to record economic activity (for example, production, consumption, and asset accumulation), does not make explicit either inputs from the environment to the economy or the cost of environmental degradation. Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (EEA), part of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), has been developed to monitor and report on ecosystem change and use, using the same accounting approach, concepts, and classifications as the SNA. The EEA is part of the statistical community’s response to move SNA measurement “beyond gross domestic product (GDP).” With the first generation of ecosystem accounts now published in 24 countries, and with a push to finalize a United Nations (UN) statistical standard for ecosystem accounting by 2021, we highlight key advances, challenges, and opportunities.”

The full article is available for download here.

What We're Reading: Conserving mangroves, a lifeline for the world

From Apple

“Through Apple’s Earth Day 2018 Give Back campaign, the company has partnered with Conservation International to protect a 27,000 acre mangrove forest in Cispatá Bay on the Caribbean coast of Colombia.”

The full article is available in the Apple Newsroom.

Recording of the first CFA Incubator Information Webinar is now available

The Conservation Finance Alliance Incubator seeks to identify, support and promote innovative ideas and solutions to conservation finance challenges that have significant positive conservation impacts. Innovation is essential to identify and develop conservation finance solutions and is especially urgent given the current rates of biodiversity loss. This virtual incubator will identify and support five concurrent projects for incubation for periods of 9 to 12 months. Support will be in the form of grants and mentorship by CFA members.

This info session answers questions posed by members and gives further information on the Incubator program.

What We're Reading: COMBO - Reducing Infrastructure Impacts on Biodiversity

By Hugo Costa, Hugo Rainey & Ray Victurine | December 16, 2019

Over the past four years, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), together with its partners Forest Trends and Biotope, have been operating an innovative program called Conservation, Impact Mitigation and Biodiversity Offsets (COMBO) in Africa. The programs overarching aim is as simple as it is ambitious: to reconcile economic development with the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

To learn more about this project please view the full article here.

What We're Reading: Investing in Nature - Private Finance for Nature-based Resilience

The Nature Conservancy joined forces with Environmental Finance to better understand what major investors are looking for, what obstacles they face and what can be done to help them scale up investments in projects that protect or enhance natural capital. They conducted a global survey of asset owners, asset managers and financial intermediaries (including banks, investment advisors, consultancies, government agencies and NGOs) and attracted responses from 168 institutions. This was complemented by 23 one-to-one interviews.

The full article is available from the Nature Conservancy here.