All we stand to gain by reevaluating how we value nature

Clean air and water, protection from floods and fires, food security, mental health, jobs. Nature provides indispensable value to Canadian lives and livelihoods, but that value isn’t accounted for in our economic system. Meet three partners working to change that.

There’s this narrative that you have to choose between economic development and conservation, and that is a false narrative…We need to prove that investing in conservation is a way to support economic development.

Amanda Reed

Nature United

Courtney Kehoe grew up as a fourth generation lobster fisher, filling her with a love for the ocean and a deep appreciation for what it means when your livelihood depends on nature. Amanda Reed watched her father play a leadership role in the community to protect the rivers he loved to fish in from pollution. Paige Olmsted spent her childhood collecting rocks and hiking the Bruce Trail, triggering a life-long quest to better understand how we can make decisions that better value nature.

Each of these women followed their own nature stewardship paths, all of which converged because they each saw firsthand the need for a dramatic increase in nature investment in Canada. Together with other inspiring leaders, they are building a new Generate Canada Solution Space: the Nature Investment Hub. Courtney leads Partner Engagement for the Hub; Paige is the Hub’s Conservation Finance Specialist and Program Director at the Smart Prosperity Institute; Amanda leads Strategic Partnerships at Nature United, a major partner in the Hub’s work. The collective goal they are working towards through the Hub: a fivefold increase in nature investments in Canada.

“For us to meet biodiversity and climate targets, we need to invest way more money into nature,” Paige insists. “We know that nature offers great benefits for us in terms of carbon sequestration, water quality, air quality, and food production, but it tends not to be accounted for in our traditional economic system. So, what do we need to do to tip those scales in a different direction and make investment opportunities easier?”

There’s this narrative that you have to choose between economic development and conservation, and that is a false narrative…We need to prove that investing in conservation is a way to support economic development.

Amanda Reed

Nature United

Boat

The Nature Investment Hub exists to help answer that question.

The Hub focuses on the need to attract private investment into nature conservation, and articulates the business case for doing so. It shows investors how financial instruments like green bonds and conservation trust funds can allow for return on investment while delivering environmental, social, and cultural benefits.

Given the size of ambition we have for conservation in the country, funding for nature cannot just come from government and philanthropy, but rather requires many different actors. The Hub is a space for leaders from business, finance, philanthropy, Indigenous organizations, government, and beyond, to work together towards large-scale nature investment in Canada.

“There’s this narrative that you have to choose between economic development and conservation, and that is a false narrative,” Amanda says. “Indigenous people’s livelihoods and economies rely on healthy lands and waters in their territories. We need to prove that investing in conservation is a way to support economic development.” Real progress to address biodiversity loss and climate change cannot happen without Indigenous-led conservation, and long-term sustainable financing models are required to support Indigenous stewardship.

All three women point to the Great Bear Rainforest as a shining example of Indigenous-led conversation where a financial instrument offers durable funding for long-term stewardship and conservation programs — a first in the country and first in the world. Coast Funds, an early partner of the Hub, manages the funds on behalf of Nations in the Great Bear Rainforest. The organization has tracked impact and created new economic pathways for communities around ecotourism and other livelihoods, and this is a model that could be right-sized to different jurisdictions in Canada.

While the Great Bear Rainforest is one of the most widely referenced examples of conservation finance in action, there are multiple examples across the conservation finance map, including the Deshkan Ziibi Conservation Impact Bond, Thaidene Nëné National Park Reserve Trust Fund, Darkwoods Forest Conservation Project, and Quebec Provincial Green Bond.

The only way to scale examples like these nationally will be through unprecedented collaboration. “The Hub acts as a connector in the conservation finance ecosystem, bringing people together to build the relationships needed to implement transformational solutions,” says Courtney.

What will a successful Nature Investment Hub look like in the next few years? Paige, Courtney, and Amanda agree success will mean attracting new dollars to nature, including significant investments from the business and finance communities. Investors and people stewarding nature will better understand the tools that are available and how those can apply in the Canadian landscape. There will be an enabling policy environment, and partnerships built on trust and understanding.

For Amanda, the Hub represents a necessary shift in how we think about conservation–ideologically and practically. “For a large part of its history, the conservation community was about protecting nature away from people. And most of us have come to realize that’s the exact opposite of what we ultimately need to do, which is to connect people with nature.” The Nature Investment Hub is about resetting our relationship with the natural world so that we value nature properly.

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