Nature and its guardians

Healthy ecosystems underpin productivity, livelihoods, climate resilience, and water and food security, yet nature loss continues. Investment spans forests, land, freshwater and oceans, and the Indigenous Peoples and local communities who protect them. Planning frameworks and new mechanisms such as the TFFF and GBFF are expanding, but nature-positive finance remains far below needs and is dwarfed by financial flows that drive ecosystem degradation.

Status

Nature-positive investment and implementation are growing, but remain far below the pace and scale required to halt and reverse nature loss. National biodiversity plans, restoration programs and financing vehicles are expanding, although nature-negative flows still vastly exceed nature-positive investment. Progress in individual landscapes and conservation programs is becoming measurable, yet aggregate forest and marine outcomes remain off track. Funding arrangements increasingly recognize Indigenous Peoples and local communities, but evidence of resources received, local decision-making authority and sustained ecosystem benefits is still limited.

Scale

Magnitude relative to the need

Stalled

Nature-positive investment remains far below needs and is dwarfed by finance contributing to ecosystem degradation. Global investment in nature-based solutions was approximately USD 220 billion in 2023, versus an estimated USD 571 billion required annually by 2030 (UNEP, 2026). A narrower OECD measure estimates annual biodiversity finance at USD 75–92 billion in 2023–25; these partially overlapping measures cannot be added (OECD, 2026d). Meanwhile, nature-negative financial flows were estimated at USD 7.3 trillion in 2023, including environmentally harmful public subsidies. Comparable aggregate investment figures for EMDEs excluding China remain unavailable, limiting country-level assessment of the shortfall.

Speed

Pace of reform against what's needed

Slow

Nature finance is advancing, but too slowly for 2030 goals. Across comparable OECD biodiversity-finance categories, domestic public spending rose 16%, international public finance 94% and private investment 73% between 2018–20 and 2023–25 (OECD, 2026d). Commercial private nature investment exceeded USD 14 billion in 2025, five times its 2016 level, but is concentrated in established revenue models (Bennett et al., 2026). New mechanisms are mobilizing commitments: USD 7.3 billion for the TFFF by September 2026 and over USD 362 million in GBFF projects (TFFF, 2026; GEF, 2026b). Mainstream investment and harmful incentives have not shifted enough to reverse nature loss.

Reach

How far it extends across countries and institutions

Slow

Financing arrangements increasingly recognize Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs), but evidence of resources reaching and being controlled by them remains limited. By March 2026, 31.9% of GBFF programmed finance was allocated to IPLC-led action, exceeding its 20% aspirational target. The Cali Fund earmarks at least half of its resources for IPLC self-identified needs, and the TFFF requires at least 20% of Forest Payments to be allocated to IPLCs (GEF, 2026b; CBD, 2025; TFFF, 2025). These figures describe allocations or requirements, not verified receipts or local decision-making. Insecure tenure and complex access procedures continue to restrict participation.

Impact

Depth of real world effect

Slow

Programs report measurable restoration and conservation gains, but global nature outcomes remain off track. GEF-supported projects reported 15.2 million hectares restored in 2022–25, and the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility made payments for 14.6 million tonnes of verified emission reductions in FY2025 (GEF, 2026a; World Bank, 2025c). Tropical primary forest loss fell 36% in 2025 but still reached 4.3 million hectares, 46% above a decade earlier, and only 10.01% of the global ocean was protected or conserved by April 2026, against a 30% target for 2030 (WRI, 2026; UNEP-WCMC, 2026). Protection coverage does not by itself establish ecological recovery.

Action fronts

Climate finance reform advances on five fronts, from replenishing the funds that already exist to reshaping how the whole system works. These are the fronts where Nature and its guardians is making headway.

Replenishing
Reshaping

The Path Forward

Nature-positive finance must grow substantially while flows that drive ecosystem degradation should be redirected. Indigenous Peoples and local communities need secure rights, direct access to resources and real authority over how they are used.

The priority is to turn biodiversity, climate, land and water commitments into costed investment programs linked to budgets and fiscal planning, integrating nature-related risks and resilience benefits into public investment decisions. Governments and financiers should expand public, concessional and results-based finance, advance mechanisms such as the TFFF and GBFF, reform environmentally harmful subsidies, and mobilize private investment where viable revenue models exist. Integrated protection and restoration across forests, landscapes, freshwater and marine ecosystems should be combined with stronger tenure rights, free, prior and informed consent and community leadership, including increased investment in vulnerable coastal communities. Finance providers need simpler direct-access channels and transparent reporting on what IPLCs actually receive and control. Better data on nature-positive and nature-negative flows, alongside measured ecological outcomes, will help distinguish program activity from lasting recovery.