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The East African region could generate long-term funding for the conservation of its ocean resources by tapping into the ‘Nature bonds’ initiative spearheaded by global conservation organization, The Nature Conservancy.
The innovative financing mechanism has the potential to unlock financing that can go towards protecting the economically critical coastal and marine ecosystems.
These ecosystems play a key role in the regional economies, besides sustaining communities’ livelihoods. Unfortunately, this cornerstone role is greatly threatened by environmental degradation and decline in natural resources and biodiversity due to unsustainable exploitation and pressure from the growing population.
Thus, there is urgent need to conserve these ecosystems that are critical pillars of East Africa’s fastest growing economies. This will also help sustain millions of households that depend on the ecosystems for a wide range of economic activities, including marine capture fisheries and aquaculture including seaweed cultivation, ports and shipping, offshore petroleum exploration and production, coastal and marine tourism, subsea cables – both electric transmission and telecommunications and coastal salt production.
The ‘Nature bonds for Ocean Conservation’ program is a possible answer. It combines conservation finance with science and marine planning expertise to help governments unlock funds at scale to help finance their conservation and climate goals while also supporting the well-being of their people and economies.
The ambitious plan aligns with national and international commitments to scale up ocean conservation around the world and address urgent biodiversity losses through improved ocean management.
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Gabon is the latest country to launch the Nature bond. Recently, The Nature Conservancy and the Government of Gabon announced a historic ‘Nature bonds’ that will go towards refinancing $500 million of the country’s national debt and unlocking $163 million in new funding to protect and manage its oceans.
A first in mainland Africa, it sets in motion a comprehensive, long-term conservation project with new funding stream to finance ocean protection and management. It is the fourth project under The Nature Conservancy’s Nature bonds for Ocean Conservation – after Seychelles, Belize and Barbados – and the largest amount of new debt it has ever raised.
The impact of the Nature bonds program is already visible in these countries where it has been deployed. In Seychelles, the innovative financing mechanism has led to ocean conservation efforts, through which the country has successfully safeguarded about 30% of its 1.35 million square kilometres of ocean territory (410,000 sq km).
Through marine spatial planning and improved fisheries management, cc and the rate of destruction will be halted, mitigating climate change and resulting in additional carbon sequestration.
In Gabon, lined up for financing under the Nature bonds program is a Marine Spatial Plan to increase the area of ocean under protection, improve management in currently protected areas and all new protected areas, and support Gabon’s sustainable ‘blue economy.’
It will also help Gabon strengthen and enforce regulations in its fishing industry where, by some estimates, $610 million annually is lost to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.
According to the CEO of The Nature Conservancy, Jennifer Morris the Nature bonds program is part of a growing number of innovative financial opportunities advancing both biodiversity and climate goals for people and nature.
These are key areas of interest for coastal economies in the region like Tanzania and Kenya where marine and coastal ecosystems are threatened. They are faced with declining fish yields, deteriorating conditions of coral reefs, and gradual reduction in mangroves and coastal forests.
To date, the Nature bonds program has helped refinance more than $1.2 billion of debt globally and is expected to generate over $400 million of new funding for conservation in support of national commitments to protect and improve management of more than 176 million hectares (or 1.8 million square kms) of ocean, an area larger than the Gulf of Mexico.
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