World Wildlife Fund

Iguaçu National Park in Brazil
© WWF-Canon / Michel Gunther

Our Work
The Conservation Finance program at WWF works across many initiatives, all of which are designed to provide long-term, sustainable financing to biodiversity conservation. In partnership with governments, private industry, communities and NGOs, we develop financial solutions to protect and sustainably manage some of the most valuable natural resources in the world. Some recent examples include:

• Negotiating the largest debt-for-nature swap in Madagascar’s history, providing $20 million directly to the Madagascar Foundation to support protected areas and preserve the country’s rich biodiversity.
• Supporting a renewable energy carbon credits project created by WWF in Nepal that once registered will provide considerable environmental, social and economic benefits to communities in Nepal.
• Designing and launching a water fund in the Sierra de las Minas Biosphere Reserve in the Mesoamerican Reef ecoregion to capture revenue payments from downstream water users and direct those funds to upstream forest conservation.

History
Since the 1980s, WWF has leveraged over $400 million through conservation trust funds, debt-for-nature swaps, and a variety of other financial mechanisms that today provide sustainable financing for biodiversity conservation in some of the most critical regions in the world.

WWF developed the first conservation trust fund in 1991 in the spectacular Himalayan country of Bhutan. WWF has since designed and launched close to 20 trust funds, and has had a hand in the design and growth of several others in conjunction with governments, donors, and NGO partners. Today, there are roughly 55 conservation trust funds in operation around the world.

In the late 1980s, WWF was one of the pioneers of the concept of the debt-for-nature swap, a financial mechanism that has since been used to preserve millions of hectares of forests and wildlife in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We helped to design and establish the first conservation corporation of its kind – the Asian Conservation Company in the Philippines. WWF has also pioneered use of tourism access fees, resource user fees, and green taxes to provide revenue for conservation.

In recent years, the Conservation Finance team has begun to develop financing mechanisms in emerging areas such as carbon finance and water funds to continue to build long-term sustainable financing for out planet’s greatest biodiversity needs.

About Us
The WWF Conservation Finance program is headquartered in Washington, DC with team members in Europe, Central and South America, Central Africa and Southeast Asia. Out staff – primarily drawn from business, finance and law – carries out its work through detailed assessments of potential sustainable finance mechanisms in target countries, negotiations with governments and donor agencies, and execution of complex financial deals that result in actual revenue for conservation.