ICFC welcomes Canada’s new commitment for biodiversity conservation in developing countries

December 7, 2022 – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced yesterday that Canada will provide an additional $350 million to help developing countries protect their large share of the world’s biodiversity.  This represents a big increase in Canada’s international biodiversity assistance at a time that the federal government is having to do some fiscal belt-tightening.

The investment is on top of the more than one billion dollars Canada has earmarked for nature-based solutions benefitting biodiversity as part of its five-year international climate finance commitment of $5.3 billion, and on top of its contribution to the Global Environment Facility, the financial mechanism that provides grant funds to developing countries for projects that include biodiversity conservation.

ICFC has called for a greater international investment by Canada since releasing its report in 2020 titled “Tropical nature needs us:  An expanded role for Canada in stemming global biodiversity loss”.  As part of the Green Budget Coalition, we recommended an annual contribution of $600 million for conservation in lower-income countries.

“This is very good news.  And we hope this will be followed by increased commitments later in this crucial decade”, said ICFC executive director Molly Bartlett.  “There is no better investment”, commented ICFC’s founding director Anne Lambert.  “Conservation is badly underfunded in the tropics and dollars go a long way there, with benefits for nature, people and climate.”

The government hopes its announcement will encourage other countries attending the COP15 biodiversity meetings in Montreal to up their own commitments.