World Wildlife Fund Center for Conservation Finance Presentation for Conservation Finance Retreat Melissa Moye February 11, 2002

WWF Center for Conservation Finance Created in 2000 based on conservation finance unit – operating since 1980s Mission is to dramatically increase the amount of sustainable, long-term funding for global conservation Primary client base: WWF’s worldwide network Budget: $1 million +

Objectives To consolidate the gains WWF has already made with conservation finance mechanisms such as debt-for-nature swaps and conservation trust funds, and to promote their broader application in WWF’s priority ecoregions, species conservation program, and global threats program

Objectives To create new financial instruments and sources to support the sustainable funding of these conservation programs, including their testing under field conditions

Focus Geographic: worldwide based on WWF 200 ecoregions in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Latin America and US Sectoral: forestry, marine, species, climate

Mechanisms: Planning Initiatives Program Management Plans (3) – Brazilian Amazon – Terai Arc (Nepal) – Meso-American Reef (Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico) Central Africa Forests Financing Study – Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon

Mechanisms: Conservation Trust Funds 15 – 20 candidates Active (8): – Madagascar – Namibia – Terai Arc – Vietnam – Mesoamerican Caribbean Reef – Argentina (Missiones) – Amazon Region Protected Areas – Kamchatka

Mechanisms Debt-for-Nature Argentina Russia – Tropical Forest Conservation Act and Coral Reef Coastal Marine Conservation Act Peru (TFCA ) Philippines (TFCA ) Future priorities: Belize, Colombia, Ecuador, Gabon, India, Indonesia, Paraguay, Thailand

Mechanisms: Investment Funds Asian Conservation Corporation (Philippines) Green Investment Fund (Russia)

Mechanisms: Tourism Taxes – Tubbataha dive fee – Bali – airport or dive fee – Maldives – airport or dive fee

Mechanisms: Communities and Poverty Reduction Successful Communities – integrating community development, health, education with conservation in the Eastern Himalayas Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) – Integrating the environment into Poverty Reduction Strategies in HIPC countries

New Mechanisms: Carbon, Watershed Evaluating sites Building expertise Developing guidelines Analyzing fundraising potential

Staffing 6 full-time, 1 part-time staff in Washington 3 affiliated staff in Washington and California Conservation finance consultant in Yaounde Conservation finance consultant in Moscow

Expertise Banking: commercial and investment (2) Conservation management (3) Languages: Chinese (1), French (4), Japanese (1), Portuguese (1), Russian (1), Spanish (6) Legal: domestic (2), foreign (2) Specialized: carbon, corporate finance, debt swaps, trust funds, user fees

Tools and Gaps Quarterly Review Program Day – Internal review Consultations within WWF Network – Participation in planning meetings – Large-scale Program Management Task Force Creation of private sector advisory board – Brainstorming – Fundraising

Needs Training guide (especially case studies) Targeted capacity building for selected sites or regions (China, Central Africa) Promoting a common policy agenda – Setting standards for carbon deals – Promoting TFCA and coral reef debt swaps Sharing information about new mechanisms Collaboration on projects on selective basis

Contributions Case studies Field testing of mechanisms in variety of settings Tools developed through large-scale program management Legal models World-wide network