Nature and Conservation Finance

Why This Conversation?

Grants and philanthropy alone cannot meet the scale of conservation need across Southern Vancouver Island and the Capital Regional District. Emerging green finance and conservation finance instruments offer exciting possibilities — but navigating this landscape requires shared learning, local knowledge, and collaborative design.

This interactive session brings together conservation practitioners, impact investors, catalytic philanthropists, and non-profit leaders to explore how blended finance tools can be deployed locally. Green financing instruments include many options, including but not limited to biodiversity credits, impact bonds and ecosystem services payments.

Habitat Acquisition Trust (HAT) has been working alongside UVic’s BIOSCAN and Balance Co-Lab programs, plus other local partners to support the SC'IȺNEW̱ Nation in exploring the development of a Tribal Park. One goal of this research is to investigate various financing, governance, and monitoring programs that might be implemented.

Case Study & Supporting Partners

• Habitat Acquisition Trust — Local land trust expertise and conservation delivery capacity, working with Nature4Justice on green financing options.
• UVic BIOSCAN Program — Biodiversity science and baseline data to underpin valuation and monitoring.
• UVic Balance Co-Lab – Community-based research to develop economic value framework systems.
• Scale Collaborative — Finance design, facilitation and impact investment expertise

Session Deliverables

• A curated overview of green and conservation finance instruments applicable to BC land conservation
• Discussion of barriers, enablers, and local conditions shaping feasibility
• Insight into how the SC'IȺNEW̱ Tribal Park proposal could serve as a replicable model
• Connections with peers working at the intersection of nature and capital
• A clear sense of appetite for a formal local working group
• Support tools to improve nature-based solutions.

⭐ Join a Local Working Group

A key outcome of this session may be the formation of a local Conservation Finance Working Group — a standing body to develop, test and champion locally- appropriate instruments. Your participation today could shape what comes next.

Who Should Attend?

• Conservation practitioners
• Impact investors
• Catalytic philanthropists
• Non-profit leaders
• Land trusts
• First Nations land stewards
• Policy advisors
• Finance
• professionals with an interest in nature-based solutions

Please note : The knowledge shared at this workshop may be transcribed for the purposes of academic research aligned with the BIOSCAN & Balance Co-Lab programs at Uvic. Your personal information stays anonymous unless you give permission.

Space is limited. Please RSVP by April 1, 2025 to confirm your attendance.

To request more information, please contact: Peter Ord | SĆIȺNEW̱ Tribal Park - Project & Fundraising Manager at [email protected]

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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