Nature just got a seat at the finance table: a new coalition will build markets that pay to protect ecosystems

At the COP17 biodiversity summit, the European Union launched an international coalition to develop nature credit markets — systems that let companies and investors pay for verified protection and restoration of ecosystems, the way carbon credits pay for emissions cuts. Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand are among the founding partners. Done well, such markets could give a standing forest or a restored wetland a revenue stream that competes with the money to be made by clearing it — turning conservation from a cost into an income.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: policy reform