Finance for nature is rising. Now it must scale.
New Biodiversity Finance Trends Dashboard data shows progress, but domestic mobilization and finance reform continue to lag.
Biodiversity finance is beginning to move at the pace the global nature crisis demands. The latest data compiled by The Nature Conservancy and the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs shows positive trends in finance for nature across most sources, although we are not yet at the scale we need to protect the nature that underpins our economies and societies. However, without accelerated progress on reforming finance that damages nature, overall progress towards the 2030 goals for halting and reversing nature loss will stall.
A significant update in the latest data is that funding from developed to developing countries specifically for biodiversity reached US$18.9 billion in 2024, up from US$8.2 billion in 2019. This puts countries within reach of the global commitment to provide at least US$20 billion a year in international biodiversity finance by 2025, known as Target 19a of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, signed at the UN biodiversity conference COP15 in 2022.
That progress matters, particularly as countries prepare for COP17 and assess what is holding back action. But it is not yet secure. Government aid budgets are under growing pressure, while the global biodiversity agreement calls for international finance to rise to at least US$30 billion a year by 2030. Donor countries must protect spending on nature and climate and use limited public funds strategically to support partner countries scale-up domestic finance and attract additional private investment. As the recent Financing Nature 2026: A Mid-Decade Update argues, the challenge is no longer a lack of tools or evidence, but the need to bring proven approaches to the scale required for people, nature and economies to thrive.
What the latest data shows:
International finance is rising. Funding focused specifically on biodiversity from developed to developing countries reached US$18.9 billion in 2024. The broader total, including projects where biodiversity is one of several objectives, reached US$34.2 billion.
Public spending is attracting more private investment. In 2024, public development finance helped attract US$1.9 billion in private investment that supported biodiversity specifically and US$2.9 billion in biodiversity-related finance.
Progress on introducing new biodiversity-positive incentives is stalling, but 39 countries and territories have completed national-level assessments on harmful subsidies, and 16 countries and 2 regions are currently conducting assessments, the first step in repurposing them to improve spending efficiency and outcomes for nature, climate and economies.
Businesses and financial institutions are responding. A total of 802 organizations from more than 56 countries and areas, representing US$26.2 trillion in assets under management, have committed to report in line with the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures.
Finance is reaching nature-based solutions. US$23.4 billion in private finance flowed to nature-based solutions for climate, biodiversity and land degradation in 2023, the latest year for which data are available.
Turning global commitments into national action
International funding is only part of the picture. Countries also need credible plans to raise, redirect, and make better use of finance at home. We know that investing in nature is fundamental to long-term productivity, growth, and resilience. The updated Dashboard records 41 completed National Biodiversity Finance Plans, with 130 countries having formally started developing one. These plans can help governments identify funding needs, improve how public money is used, attract private investment, and connect financial decisions to national biodiversity priorities.
This will be central to COP17. As governments consider whether limited finance is slowing progress, the discussion should also examine the practical barriers that prevent money from reaching nature. National Biodiversity Finance Plans can turn global commitments into clear, country-led priorities that public and private investors can support.
More money for nature, less money working against it
Raising new finance is only half the task. Progress toward Target 18, which calls for subsidies and other incentives that harm nature to be reduced or reformed by at least US$500 billion a year by 2030, remains too slow. Thirty-nine countries and territories have worked with BIOFIN to complete national assessments of harmful incentives, while 16 countries and two regions are currently conducting assessments.
The direction of travel is clear: more finance is reaching nature, but far more continues to work against it. Closing the biodiversity finance gap will require governments and markets to redirect existing financial flows, not simply add new funding at the margins. This is not only an environmental priority. It is a public finance reform agenda: reducing inefficient spending, improving value for money, and shifting incentives toward the natural systems that support food security, water security, climate resilience and economic growth.
Private finance is moving, but not yet at scale
The growing number of organizations adopting nature-related disclosure and the increase in private finance attracted by public development finance are positive signs. They show that the tools to shift capital toward nature already exist.
The priority now is to use those tools more consistently and at greater scale. Governments can create clearer policy and regulatory conditions. Businesses and financial institutions can assess and disclose how they depend on and affect nature, as well as the risks and opportunities involved. Public and philanthropic finance can also be used more deliberately to reduce risk and attract private investment.
Taking Action for Nature
See the key policy actions TNC is urging Parties to advance at COP17
LEARN MOREWhat COP17 needs to deliver
The Dashboard’s positive trends show that solutions exist. At COP17, the first global review of progress towards the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework will highlight that we are not yet on track to halt and reverse nature loss this decade. As they gather in Armenia, governments should focus on the conditions needed to implement these solutions at scale: protecting and using international public finance strategically; helping countries raise and redirect more finance at home; advancing National Biodiversity Finance Plans; attracting private investment; and identifying and reforming subsidies and other incentives that harm biodiversity. The opportunity now is to move beyond treating nature finance as a discrete funding gap and embed nature into the policy, planning and investment systems that shape the wider economy.
As governments examine the barriers to raising and directing finance for nature, the Dashboard provides practical evidence of where momentum is building and where action remains off track.
The opportunity is to move from proof points to scale
The central finding of the refreshed Dashboard is not that solutions or capital are absent. It is that the conditions for finance to flow toward nature are not yet in place consistently or at sufficient scale. That reinforces the message of Financing Nature 2026: progress is visible across public finance, private mobilization, national planning and market disclosure, but the decisive task now is to turn pilots, policy shifts and investment models into implementation at scale while reducing the much larger flows that continue to damage nature.
Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) sets ambitious finance targets to transform nature conservation financing. Key targets include:
- Mobilizing $200 billion annually by 2030 from all sources—public, private, domestic, and international.
- Redirecting $500 billion in harmful subsidies by 2030, while scaling up positive incentives for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.
- Taking actions to encourage and enable businesses to assess, disclose and reduce biodiversity-related risks and negative impacts.
These targets aim to increase financial resources, promote sustainable practices, and enhance transparency and accountability in biodiversity conservation.
Related Reading
Financing Nature in and from Europe | TNC
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Gaining Ground: State of Private Investment in Nature, 2026
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New Financing Nature 2026 Report Offers Playbook for Financing Nature Protection at Scale
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