Ecosystems are the Earth’s natural-life support systems. The ocean generates half of the oxygen we breathe; forests purify the air and regulate the climate; healthy land and soil is essential for food production; and wetlands provide clean water, wildlife protection, sediment removal, and prevent flooding.

Ecosystem degradation is a global crisis.  All major types of natural ecosystems including forests, grasslands, deserts, tundra, freshwater, and marine are being degraded or destroyed. Many parts of the world have experienced an irreversible loss of the environmental, social, and economic benefits that ecosystems provide.

Globally, 70% of the services provided by ecosystems have been degraded. The UN and global community concluded that there is an urgent need to prevent, halt, and restore all degraded ecosystems before it is too late to recover these ecological functions and services.

Most ecosystem restoration projects provide more benefits that the cost of investment. Ecosystems deliver essential services worth between $21-72 trillion dollars a year; and every $1 million dollars invested in restoration work generates 33 jobs on average.

The funding gap for restoration projects must be solved. Restoration projects in the United States and around the world are severely underfunded as governments cannot fund the estimated $300-$400 billion dollars needed per year to preserve and restore ecosystems.

Additional private funding is needed. Without the support of private funding sources, ecosystems will continue to be degraded; resulting in the unsustainable loss of the long-term environmental, social, and economic benefits and essential services they provide.

Conservation finance offers a solution. Conservation finance helps to raise capital for the conservation and restoration of ecosystems and the services they provide over the long term.