Ian Herbert: What do we spend looking after nature in Aotearoa?

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If we want our grandchildren to marvel at the scarlet flash of kea wings, we need to invest in nature for them. Photo / Brett Phibbs
THREE KEY FACTS:
Ian Herbert is a University of Otago Business School international biodiversity finance expert and a member of the United Nations Biofin network and programme lead for the NZ Biofin Assessment.
OPINION
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 tarseal over nature than regeneration or conservation. Most nations in the Pacific are in front of the eight 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.
Progress is not only in the Pacific.
October marked the 16th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Colombia, and I attended. I was there with the United Nations, as a practitioner and as an academic.
The UN Biofin (which stands for Biodiversity Finance) team confirmed 40 nations have completed this assessment and 90 new ones are under way – most of the world.
Biodiversity Finance is mainstreaming internationally. What’s more, in the main chamber, there were more tables of internationals, businesses, specialists, and non-governmental organisations than the government. The landscape of movers and shakers is changing fast.
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 yellow-eyed penguin, New Zealand’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 living planet index of 32,000 global wildlife populations has collapsed by more than 70%.
Worse outcomes are ahead for us locally, with 94% of our unique reptile species and 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 really okay with us taking this future with nature away from them?
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. We’d never run a business without knowing where our money goes and how much was spent.
If we want our grandchildren to marvel at the scarlet flash of kea wings above them on a mountain track or spot a hoiho hunkered on its coastal nest, we need to invest in nature for them.
At the CBD conference, 197 governmental delegates met for three weeks to progress the UN’s urgent call on member nations to invest more effectively in stopping this biodiversity loss.
Biofin is a global initiative started 10 years ago to help countries break from the historical pattern of biodiversity loss using biodiversity finance instruments. New Zealand got a special call out as the newest member of the Biofin family and for world-leading biodiversity finance innovation.
That was awesome. I arrived in Colombia in one piece and the next day I was heading into the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta valley.
Dense jungle surrounding mountains reaching over 5000m. I met the Kogi Shaman (rangatira) at the lost city ruins which is still used as a spiritual centre for the Kogi Tribe. They live immersed in the jungle. I feel extremely lucky to have met and been offered a lucky charm from him. We could learn a lot from these people who are so invested and connected with nature.
Internationally, realigning an extra 0.2% of world GDP is needed to fill the biodiversity financing gap over the next 10 years.
New Zealand has designed a new tool that can do up to half of that called the Biodiversity Investment Contribution (the BIC).
Just like a retirement contribution, it invests for the future, but for our children’s common future with nature. It is simple and makes sense.
Here it’s likely we will find we need to invest a similar amount. That is all it takes to give our kids a future with nature. The BIC can do it.
Around the world increasing “on the ground” investment in biodiversity helps nature but also boosts the economy significantly. This is another number we are keen to work out at the University of Otago Business School.
The process of increasing these money flows starts by assessing our biodiversity finance position. This will be a very good thing because we can understand how to invest better.
Once we’ve got a baseline of what we currently spend, we will consider how to deliver better, how to generate revenues, and where to realign investment for the best results.
The assessment will contribute to knowledge and planning by central and regional government, iwi and hapū, the private sector, and non-government organisations.
Don’t be surprised if farmers and landowners as well as community groups and iwi do more of the heavy lifting than we realise.
As we work through the NZ Biofin Assessment, we’ll operate through working groups and promote collaboration between the government, the private sector, and non-government organisations.
The UN Biofin team will support this process, but it is led by New Zealand and the Otago University Business School.
The plan for the NZ Biofin assessment spans 2024 to early 2026 and includes the following main phases:
· Institutional Review (2024): Assess current institutions and their role in biodiversity funding.
· Biodiversity Spending Review (2024): Assess current biodiversity spending and its effectiveness.
· Assessment of funding needs (2025): Identify funding needs for effective biodiversity conservation.
· Biodiversity Finance Plan (2026): Formulate a strategic plan to secure and allocate the necessary funding.
The collaborative nature of this initiative emphasises the responsibility we all share in New Zealand to ensure the survival of species.
The work acknowledges how nature in many ways defines us – Māori and increasingly non-Māori.
As Dr Melanie Mark-Shadbolt has said: “If we lost the kiwi, we are no longer Kiwis, are we?”
John Dewey says: “A problem well put is half solved.” The problem is that we are not investing in our children’s common future with nature.

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