Representatives from six Conservation Trust Funds in the Asia-Pacific region met in Jakarta, Indonesia in early December 2017 to form the Asia-Pacific Conservation Trust Fund Network, to be known as “APNET.”
The new network, modeled on RedLAC and CAFÉ, will serve as a collaborative and knowledge-sharing platform for CTFs in the Asia-Pacific region, and will help to facilitate linkages with CTFs in other parts of the world.
Six founding members came together over three days in Jakarta, ably hosted by Yayasan KEHATI, to formally create the network, ratify the governing principles, elect the first Executive Committee, and select the Host Institution to house the Secretariat.
APNET’s founding members are Arannayk Foundation of Bangladesh, represented by Farid Uddin Ahmed and Dr Muhammed Quddus; Bhutan Trust Fund for Environmental Conservation, represented by Dr. Pema Choephyel and Singye Dorji; Forest Foundation Philippines, represented by Jose Andres Canivel; Foundation for the Philippine Environment represented by Oliver Agoncillo; Micronesia Conservation Trust represented by Lisa Ranahan Andon; and Yayasan KEHATI of Indonesia represented by M.S. Sembiring, Indra Gunawan and Fardila Astari. The Phoenix Islands Protected Area Trust and Tasmanian Land Conservancy are also founding members but were unable to attend the meeting in person.
Farid Uddin Ahmed, Lisa Ranahan Andon, Pema Choephyel, Jane Hutchinson, and M.S. Sembiring were elected to the Executive Committee.
Yayasan KEHATI was selected as the first Host Institution of the network, and will serve as the base for the Secretariat.
APNET plans to hold its first Assembly in March, 2019.
Other meeting attendees included Nety Riana and Mozaika Hendarti of Yayasan KEHATI, Robert Baigrie of Conservation International, Katy Mathias of Wildlife Conservation Society, and Roman Czebiniak of EcoNusantara.
Funding for the meeting and the initial formation of APNET was provided by Conservation International, Fonds Français for l’Environnement Mondial (FFEM) and the MAVA Foundation.
WCS Announcing 2018 Request for Proposals through Climate Adaptation Fund
The Wildlife Conservation Society has announced the next round of grant-making through the Climate Adaptation Fund. Learn more about this year's Request for Proposals here, and check out the informational video included below.
Interested organizations should carefully review the guidelines outlined in the Request for Proposals posted HERE on their new website.
Pre-proposal applications are due by Friday, April 7th 2018, by 5:00 PM EST. To apply, create an account for your organization or log in to a previously created account and submit your application in their online system.
New Library Addition: Options and Financial Mechanisms for the Financing of Biodiversity Offsets
New Resilience/Adaptation Financing Guide for SF Bay Area
A CFA member recently helped put together a resilience/adaptation financing guide for the San Francisco Bay Area Resilient by Design challenge. The guide can be found here, on the Resilient Bay Area page, or on the CFA site.
Call for Webinar Topics
Over the next few months we are aiming to host several webinar sessions presented by CFA members. If you have an idea you would like to present or a topic that you would like to see presented and discussed, please email our secretariat.
The webinars can cover a range of conservation finance topics. For an idea of what a CFA webinar session will look like, please check out the webinars page on the website for a description and recordings of our last session with Lestari Capital.
Book Recommendation Page is Now Live
For the past few weeks we have been gathering recommendations for books relating to conservation that our members might enjoy or find informative. We have compiled a list of these books that is now up on the CFA site. Each listing contains the title, a short description, and the name of the member who recommended it.
Moving forward, we would love to post more recommendations! if you have a book you would like to include on the site, please send the title and a few sentences on why you think your fellow members should check it out to our secretariat.
WWF GEF Seeks Consultant for Upcoming Project
The WWF GEF Agency is recruiting a consultant to develop the WWF GEF Project Document (ProDoc) for the Project “Land Degradation Neutrality Fund Technical Assistance Facility” (GEF PMIS #9900).
Terms of Reference are available for download here, as we all the GEF-6 Project Identification Form.
Interested parties1 are requested to email separate technical and financial proposals along with an application letter to Astrid Breuer [astrid.breuer@wwfus.org], WWF GEF Agency, 1250 24th St. NW, Washington DC, 20037, USA, no later than 5:00 PM, 15 January, 2018.
BIOFIN Webinar - Private Lands Conservation Series, Part 1: Conservation easements, the USA case
Mon, Dec 4, 2017 - 9:00am EDT
BIOFIN is launching a series of webinars on private lands conservation that will feature examples such as conservation easements, customary and collective property conservation, and Private Protected Areas (PPAs). This first session will focus on conservation easements in the US. Conservation easements are legally binding agreements between private landowners and non-profit land trusts or government to protect conservation values of a property. The webinar speaker, Andrew Seidl, is a co-author of the study and a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at CSU as well as a Senior Technical Advisor for BIOFIN.
The Webinar will focus on the main lessons learnt from the mechanism's evolution and implementation in the US. The strengths, weaknesses and risks will be presented as well as relevant examples of implementation and the return on investment of such mechanism for the region of Colorado.
Further information on the webinar is available here, and the link to register is here.
Updates from the RedLAC Assembly
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, was the host city for the 19th RedLAC Assembly on November 2017. This is one of the most important meetings about cooperation among environmental funds and financing for conservation in the region. For the first time three funds hosted the Assembly Fundacion Sur Futuro, Fondo Marena and Caribbean Biodiversity Fund.
One hundred and sixty-two attendees from four continents were able to exchange during four days information and experiences thanks to this valuable networking taking place during the Assembly.
This year’s Assembly theme was the Blue Economy, focusing in particular on the importance of coastal and marine ecosystems for sustainable development and how Environmental Funds can play a crucial role in this agenda. Thematic panels discuss the concepts of the Blue Economy, its perspectives, the relationship with the tourism sector and actions to adapt to climate change. As every year, the agenda was complemented with panels dedicated to financial, investment and environmental fund management issues.
Presentations, photos, and information from the assembly will be available on the CFA Site later this week.
New Clarmondial and WWF Report on Conservation Investments
Clarmondial and the WWF Landscape Finance Lab have produced “Capitalising Conservation”, a new report exploring how conservation organisations and their partners can mobilise private investment in conservation. The report provides a framework to guide the identification, structuring and execution of investments in conservation. It describes various roles conservation organisations can play to unlock investment capital and supports effective investor engagement.
The publication highlights how leading conservation organisations have pioneered investment strategies and structures in conservation finance, illustrated by case studies involving Conservation International, NatureVest (The Nature Conservancy), Rewilding Europe, Wildlife Conservation Society, Wildlife Works and WWF. It features a foreword by Naoko Ishii, the CEO of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the perspective of corporates and investment partners including Nespresso and Finance in Motion.
The Capitalising Conservation report is available here.
The press release regarding the report is available here.