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Chicago 2023 Conservation Finance Roundtable Recap

Katie Michels
Eighty-five practitioners from across the United States came to Chicago in April, 2023 to attend the Network roundtable. The two-day meeting was full of presentations on innovative projects taking place at multiple scales, in different geographies, and led by nonprofit, public, and private entities. The roundtable featured a...
The United Nations Water conference, March 2023

The author's view of the UN Water Conference. 

Funding Clean Water for All at the United Nations Water Conference

Robin Happel
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...

Staking the State of Nature, With Data and Urgency

Dimitria Spathakis
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...
Elizabeth Schuster, Environmental Economist, Sustainable Economies Consulting

Elizabeth Schuster, Environmental Economist, Sustainable Economies Consulting

Partners Unite to Share Lessons Around Regenerative Agriculture, Forestry, and Conservation

Leigh Whelpton
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...
(Photo by Mark Pouley via Creative Commons) The Skagit Valley in a reconsidered light.

Making conservation relevant for a broader community, considering new sources of funding, and protecting landscape: practice can incorporate all of these in a cycle. 

Placing Fairness at the Root: Three Case Studies in Conservation Finance Justice

Katie Michels
Environmental justice in land conservation requires practitioners to slow down and consider the foundations that exclude or enable relationships with and control over land. The following stories highlight three organizations using conservation finance strategies to advance environmental justice outcomes. In each story, participants have asked: why is this so?
Everyone learns in meetings - but what can we learn about how to run meetings?

With the International Land Conservation Network, CFN offers a handbook for handling gatherings to boost impact. 

How to Bring People Together to Unlock Scaled Conservation Impact

Helen Rogers, Leigh Whelpton
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.
Proctor Creek in Atlanta

How does Atlanta's Proctor Creek connect to national water management and worldwide carbon mitigation? The same way conversations about small projects connect to global biodiversity breakthroughs.  / Shawn Taylor / CC BY 2.0 

Conservation Finance Boot Camp: Sharing and Benefiting From Stories of Shared Benefit

Alec Appelbaum
How can professionals who devote their lives to sustaining real places connect in virtual space? Judging from the 2021 Boot Camp, pretty intensely. Digital again for the first time, the 2021 Conservation Finance Boot Camp drew over 120 professionals from at least six time zones to learn proven...
How the arch framework opens to ideas

The idea of a range of project components helps practitioners plan and execute. 

The Enduring Arch Framework: A "FICO Score for Conservation Finance Projects"?

Brad Ward
How do you think about what makes investors, conservation professionals and members of the public better off? For the authors of a new report, this question sparked an intellectual inquiry that led to a new language for thinking about what gives a project value. The language builds off the framework...
Taos Land Trust budgets listening time and consideration into all its projects.

The Taos Land Trust's Youth Conservation Corps poses before working to revive an acequela, tackle invasive species, restore wetlands and sustainably grow food. Attention to community needs and priorities drives this workplan. (Courtesy the Taos Land Trust.)

Leveraging Conservation Finance to Advance Equity & Justice, Part Two: Methods

Sawyer Cresap
Traditionally, the conservation movement has fought to protect land, air and water, but it has not served all communities equally. Recognizing the interconnections between injustice done to the most vulnerable communities and the environment clarifies how access to a healthy environment relates to public health, food security, community vitality, education...