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Conservation finance is a rapidly-developing field with significant potential to advance the conservation of land and biodiversity.
Recent books, conferences and web-based resources about conservation finance have attracted the interest of: conservation practitioners in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors; finance and legal professionals; university-based educators; and students considering conservation as a profession. Building on and including traditional tools such as grants and private giving, conservation finance involves the innovative use of public sector and market techniques to fund conservation initiatives on a global basis.
Conservation finance integrates a wide variety of professional skill sets. The continued growth and success of the field hinges on the ability of the conservation community to make relatively complex conservation tools and techniques comprehensible and accessible to practitioners in the field.
The Conservation Capital in the Americas Conference will be held January 17th-19th, 2009, in Valdivia, Chile. Participating in the conference will be approximately 100 invited conservation practitioners, educators and students from North, Central, and South America. Jim Levitt, Director of The Program on Conservation Innovation at The Harvard Forest, is coordinating the event, which will explore some of the most effective practices and emerging innovations in the field of conservation finance.
Conservation finance can be used to help protect land and biodiversity and enhance local economies across the Western Hemisphere from Chilean Patagonia to the coast of Labrador. Conference participants will consider several of the most promising approaches to conservation finance including: the use of emerging carbon markets to conserve working forests and agricultural landscapes; the creation of other ecosystem service markets to advance the protection of natural systems; “conservation investment banking” methods such as public and private debt-for-nature swaps; micro, small, and medium enterprise financing methods to achieve conservation in concert with economic development; third-party certified forestry and agriculture; and the use of tax and public budgetary policy to finance land conservation initiatives.
Partners and funders for the conference and for a forthcoming book to be based on presentations made at the meeting include the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, the Environmental Leadership and Training Institute (a joint initiative of the Smithsonian Institution and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies), the Harvard Forest, the Horizon Foundation, the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Trust for Public Land, and the Universidad Austral de Chile.
The Conservation Capital in the Americas Conference will include a Student Competition to identify, assemble, and support emerging leaders in the field of conservation finance. Students selected on the basis of submitted essays on conservation finance will be given the opportunity to attend the Conservation Capital in the Americas Conference. Transportation from the student’s home city to Valdivia, Chile and back, as well as travel and lodging in Valdivia, Chile, will be covered for all selected participants. To access the competition application information, please click here. For applicants from South or Central American Universities please click here (todo el material está en Español.)
Applications for the Conservation Capital in the Americas Student Competition will be accepted from September 2, 2008 through November 7, 2008. Winners will be notified in Prior to Thanksgiving, and expected to attend the Conservation Capital in the Americas Conference in Valdivia January 17 - 19, 2009. Recipients of the Maine undergraduate award will also present their work in a poster session at the Maine Coast Heritage Trust Land Conservation Conference on Saturday, May 2, 2009.
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