VIDEO STATEMENT: Hansjörg Wyss Addresses the Nature Finance Forum at this Week’s U.N. General Assembly

Nsumbu National Park, Zambia | Photo credit: Frankfurt Zoological Society

Nations will meet next year at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Kunming, China to agree to an ambitious plan to protect nature around the world, which they are calling the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Numerous nations and organizations are calling on the Convention to adopt an ambitious global goal of protecting at least 30% of the planet, on land and at sea, by 2030 as part of that plan. 

This week, on the sidelines of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, international leaders met to discuss one element of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework – and the 30x30 effort – which is absolutely fundamental to its success: increasing funding for protected area creation and management.

At the Nature Finance Forum, Hansjörg Wyss – who has committed $1 billion to global nature protection efforts over the next decade – joined other leaders from donor countries, developing nations, multilateral and regional financial institutions, corporations and investors, and fellow philanthropists to demonstrate leadership in this critical area.

Wyss delivered the following message:

Meaningfully addressing the dual crises of biodiversity loss and climate change will require mobilizing new and existing resources to properly fund the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Financial resources will have to be marshaled from a multitude of sources, including official development assistance, government investments in the management of their own protected areas, climate financing directed to nature-based solutions, philanthropies, corporations, and new sources of revenue or savings through regulatory and subsidy changes.

The Nature Finance Forum kicked off a series of discussions that will run through COP15 in Kunming, China with the goal of generating increased financial resources to implement an ambitious Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. The Wyss Campaign for Nature looks forward to being an active participant in these discussions to help ensure the global community has the resources to implement solutions to the crisis facing nature by protecting at least 30% of the planet by decade’s end.