Conservation Finance Network

CFN is pleased to announce our 17th annual Boot Camp will be held June 5-9, 2023, at the Yale School of the Environment in New Haven, CT, in partnership with the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. The Boot Camp is a week-long intensive workshop that helps mid-career professionals...

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...

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.

In June, conservation finance practitioners reconnected in a stone skyscraper overlooking New York City's Madison Square Park for a key annual conference. This story excerpts a dialogue between Emma Crystal, the bank's chief sustainability officer, and a BlackRock research leader named Chris Weber.

This January, Environmental Defense Fund and Farmers Business Network launched the pilot Regenerative Agriculture Finance Fund (RAFF). Enrolled farmers who meet soil health and nitrogen efficiency standards will access a 0.5% discount on a one-year credit line. This product, years in the making, aims to update farm financing.

Organizations across the country, and across land types, are working to implement aggregation projects to help family forest owners, small farmers, and all those who own smaller parcels of land. These projects serve farmer whose priorities may differ internally and in comparison to commercial operations.

In looking at forest restoration finance in a tropical context, three experts at a Yale-sponsored panel spoke of clearer images from space and more inclusive planning on the ground.

Intractable social and environmental problems require collective action. These challenges demand that we step beyond individual mission statements and business models to craft strategies, chart paths forward, and unlock scaled impact—together. A new guide draws on lessons from convenings around the world to make gatherings more enjoyable and effective.

Every year, the Land Trust Alliance Rally unites practitioners across the conservation finance firmament. The 2021 rally weighed more in our memories, marking an end to isolation and raising our prospects. Our team members reflect below.