A green sanctuary in the heart of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, Finca Chimelb hums with the melody of melodious blackbirds and chatter among local laborers. Spanning 4,751 hectares, the farm consists of rolling hills lined with high-value crops, such as cacao, specialty coffee, and cardamom, paired with rubber trees and other...
In many parts of the world, clean water is still an untapped market – but a flow of innovative finance is beginning to change this. Currently, the United Nations estimates that between $182 billion to over $600 billion annually is needed to address the global water crisis. Worldwide, millions of...
Food companies have started to incorporate regenerative agriculture into their sustainability strategies and supply chains - it’s an important buzzword today for companies, but how are they defining it? And what are they doing to support farmers in the transition? I spoke with Daily Harvest - the plant-based meal delivery...
In December 2022 the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) advocated urgency for an expedited 2025 timeline to more than double finance flows in nature-based solutions (NbS) to limit climate change to below 1.5°C, halt biodiversity loss, and achieve land degradation neutrality. UNEP published the second edition of its “State of...
Seaweed—as a food source and beyond—has the potential to be profitable and sustainable, while supporting culturally important cuisines and strengthening the base of the marine food web. Recently, interest in cultivating seaweed, especially in the United States, has grown—but anyone interested in growing seaweed, investing in it, or processing it...
Elizabeth Schuster, Environmental Economist, Sustainable Economies Consulting
The
Network (CFN) convened partners for their 10th CFN Roundtable, hosted in Durham, NC on November 2-3, 2022. The roundtable brought together nearly 70 practitioners representing nonprofit organizations, foundations, private sector firms, governmental agencies, and universities. The event was organized around nine different panels on a variety of...
The available level of funding does not have recent precedent,” said Leigh Whelpton, Executive Director of the
Network. This windfall of potential funding is certainly beneficial to practitioners, who often rely on initial government support to attract private investors.
Remote technology can carry data faster and finer than humans in the field reliably can. (Photo by ihamr via Flickr Creative Commons.)
The value in land increases when you conserve it- but conserved land grows and moves in many ways. Large and small land-stewardship organizations are investing in remote technology for clearer, more investable pictures of what they're conserving. And investors are learning a new language.
Countries and companies are indeed looking to restore forests and other ecosystems to offset carbon output. Nature-based carbon projects protect or restore ecosystems, like a tropical forest in Indonesia, and generate carbon credits based on the emissions avoided or sequestered. Typically, third-party developers put these projects together for implementation by...
Take in the view of the Lower Brule reservation, courtesy Jerry Huddleston via Flickr Creative Commons.
Bryan Van Stippen’s talk started with an assertion: Tribal nations must “not let their natural resource assets benefit others before they benefit their own communities.” The National Indian Carbon Coalition (NICC) views carbon projects as both economic development and natural resource stewardship opportunities in response to historic extraction and theft.
