Finance for nature: A global estimate of public biodiversity investments

Abstract Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will meet at the 15th Conference of Parties (COP 15) to carve out a post-2020 framework for global biodiversity conservation. Finance will be among the priority concerns. No global estimates of public biodiversity investments are in the peer reviewed literature. The methodology developed by the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) provides a means for countries to account systematically for their biodiversity expenditures. Importantly, budget lines that intentionally, but secondarily, affect biodiversity outcomes are assigned a percentage at which they can be attributed to biodiversity. A sample of thirty countries facilitated the construction of a panel to predict public biodiversity investments at a global level. Here we show that global public biodiversity investments have increased steadily to an average of US$121 billion invested annually from 2008–2017, or 0.19–0.25% of global GDP. Our data not only indicate an increasing trend in total biodiversity investment, but also an increase in the percentage of total public domestic investment dedicated to biodiversity.