Knowledge Sharing with the United Nations BIOFIN Team
New Zealand BIOFIN Assessment
Do you know how much we spend in Aotearoa looking after te taiao?
Me neither!.
Not yet at least. It’s easier to discover how much we invest in laying tar seal over nature than regeneration or conservation. Most nations in the Pacific are in front of the 8 ball and have worked this out already. But many of us in Aotearoa agree we should work this out.
That’s why a team and I are working with the University of Otago Business School to do the maths to share for the first time.
Ian Herbert, University of Otago NZ BIOFIN Assessment Lead
What’s the Problem?
Our variety of wildlife – our biodiversity – here in Aotearoa is world class. But we’ve been shockers in looking after it. There’s only about a fifth of the hoiho, NZ’s 2024 bird of the year, left on the mainland compared to 2009.
This fail rate is on-trend internationally; in just 50 years, the WWF Living Planet Index of 32,000 global wildlife populations has collapsed by over 70%.
The UN is calling for urgent action saying the collapse is continuing due to a significant shortfall in wildlife investment somewhere in the region of US$700 - 800 Billion per Annum.
Worse outcomes are ahead for us locally, with 94% of our unique reptile species, 82% of all our indigenous birds, threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened.
With this kind of scorecard, there is an urgent need to finance and invest in biodiversity for our kids. Or are our kids ok with us taking this future with nature away from them?
Photo Credit: Sustainability Business Network
The Project
That’s why I am leading the independent University of Otago NZ BIOFIN Assessment with support from the United Nations BIOFIN Team.
I will assess what we spend on biodiversity, what we need to spend, and how to finance it. BIOFIN is a United Nations method that helps to break the cycle of biodiversity loss using biodiversity finance solutions.
Biodiversity finance helps fix the problem. Unless we know how much we spend trying to stop the species loss, we can’t know if we are investing more or less than in the past, or if what we are investing is money well spent. That is our first step.
Join us on the BIOFIN journey as we progress each of the stages to reveal new and groundbreaking results about biodiversity finance in New Zealand.
Images by Amanda Sinclaire
NZ BIOFIN Bulletins
Collaborators
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Ian Herburt
Program Lead - Otago University
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Annabelle Trinidad
Senior Technical Advisor - UNDP BIOFIN