🌱 This week in NatureTech #15

🐘 Long Read (1-Min Read)

US swap $35 million of debt to save coral reefs

Coral Ecosystem Importance:
- Coral reefs are biodiversity hotspots, providing a home to 25% of all marine species.
- These ecosystems generate $375 billion annually in goods and services globally.

Conservation Status in Indonesia:
- Indonesia boasts 5.1 million hectares of coral reefs, representing 18% of the world's total.
- Over 35% of Indonesian reefs are in poor condition, and 2023 saw devastating coral bleaching events.

Coral Triangle Focus:
- The deal targets the Bird's Head and Lesser Sunda-Banda Seascapes
- These areas are home to over 75% of all coral species and more than 3,000 types of fish, turtles, sharks, whales, and dolphins.

How does it work:

1. A portion of Indonesia's debt to the US ($26 million) is forgiven and redirected to conservation efforts.

2. Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy have added an additional $4.5 million

3. Representatives from both governments will manage the funds to ensure optimal outcomes for Coral Reefs

Bigger picture:
- This is part of the Tropical Forest and Coral Reef Restoration Act, which allows countries to reduce their debt to the U.S.
- In the 25 years since its adoption, the act has supported swaps in 14 countries and unlocked more than $415 million for Coral Reefs and Tropical Forests

For NatureTech?
- The devil is in the detail with these swaps. Validating how funds are used for conservation and being able to validate their success is critical. 
- Clearly Measurement, Reporting and Verification technologies (eDNA, Bioacoustics, Camera Traps) can all play a critical role in supporting transparency.

What start-us are working in this space?

1. Coral Vita (Bahamas) - Land-based coral farming. Grows resilient forms of coral 50x faster than nature.
2. Coral Guardian (France) - Community-driven reef restoration. Trains local "coral gardeners" to be guardians of the reefs.
3. Corals. AI (USA) - AI-powered reef monitoring. Uses computer vision to assess reef health. Predicts bleaching events before they occur
4. Blue Oasis Technology (Australia) - 3D-printed reef structures. These are then sunk to support coral growth.
5. Wildflow (UK) - A data platform for Coral Reef management. Accelerating conservation research.

 (Full story here)

💬 Snippets for your lift conversations

• Big business: Pip & Nut joins Tony's Chocolonely scheme for 'fairer, more ethical' cocoa

• Big business: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group issues $272m Sustainability linked Loan to EDF with biodiversity performance linked to repayment terms

• Big business: Lego to replace oil in its bricks with pricier renewable plastic

• Tech: ICE to use satellite data investment to follow EU deforestation rules

• Finance: BlackRock is using artificial intelligence to help assess its exposure to growing nature-related risks and assess investment opportunities.

• Finance: Federated Hermes and Finance Earth outline nature project development plan

• Finance:  Finland's development finance institution has adopted a policy of “no net loss” of biodiversity on its investments. The Finnfund commitment follows it already investing in companies with no negative net effects on biodiversity,

• Policy: The Wildlife Trusts has published a series of recommendations for how the new Labour government can boost the climate resilience of the UK's nature reserves

• Policy: The Japanese government is considering establishing a biodiversity offsetting scheme similar to the biodiversity net gain (BNG) law in England to compensate for habitat degradation driven by flood control

• Research: Credits generated from reducing impacts on large migratory marine creatures could help unlock funds for implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) an academic paper has said.

• Research: Researchers at Australia’s Flinders University hope listening to the sounds soils make  will make it easier to find and fix soil degradation

• Sport: 'World's greenest football club' Forest Green Rovers joins Reading in incorporating climate stripes graphic into home and away shirts

• Random: “Beaver bombing”, covertly releasing beavers into the countryside, is increasing in England because successive governments have not fulfilled promises to permit some planned wild releases, conservationists are warning.

🎣 Deals

• Aplantex, a Montreal, Canada-based startup specializing in extracting high-value plant molecules for biopharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and agri-foods raised $2.O8M in Series A funding

• Nordic SeaFarm, a Swedish start-up focussed on sustainable seaweed cultivation, announced $2.4Mn in early VC

• HabiTerre has completed an initial close of $10 million on its Series A round for its platform that estimates agricultural production systems and analyses the impact of farming techniques on crop productivity and the environment.

💭 Little Bytes

📊Stat: Scientists have determined that the number of stars in the Milky Way ranges from 100 billion to upwards of 400 billion, but there is an estimated amount of 3 trillion trees on Earth

📺️Watch: Sylvia Earle on the greatest threat to our oceans

💬 Listen: The ‘ghost roads’ driving tropical deforestation

📆 Events

• 10 September - Advances in measurement reporting and verification: environmental DNA - London

• 17 September - rewilding: beavers back in Britain. - London

• 26 Sept - NetworkNature Annual Event 2024 | Busting myths - Virtual

• 30 September - Nature for Life Hub 2024 - Virtual

• 8 October - The Global Nature Positive Summit 2024 - Sydney

• 9 October - frontiers in Nature-Finance: capital, compliance, and checks & balances. - London

• 16 October - greenwashing and greenhushing: navigating the corporate goldilocks zone - London

• 24 October - Bloom - Colombia

💼 Jobs

Special thanks to Theresa Lieb for this awesome list…

🐝 Corporate 🐝

Lindt & Sprüngli, Head of Responsible Sourcing (Zurich, Switzerland) https://lnkd.in/eiSJdAkQ

DSM Firmenich, Global Sustainability Nature Trainee (Barcelona, Spain) https://lnkd.in/ea-sjK-e

Salesforce, Analyst, Water, Nature and GHG Accounting (London, UK) https://lnkd.in/efmu6NuV

Gap, Senior Manager, Global Water Stewardship (San Francisco, US) https://lnkd.in/eCwVECdF

Pernod Ricard, Nature Impact Manager (Paris, France) https://lnkd.in/eW85KHGk

🐝Finance🐝

Rabobank, Quantitative Analyst for Biodiversity (Utrecht, Netherlands) https://lnkd.in/eYMz-Ve8

IDB, Nature Financial Instruments Consultant (Washington DC, US) https://lnkd.in/eQjukR_X

🦊 Nature-based solution projects & nature tech startups 🦊

The Ocean Clean-Up, Senior Finance Business Partner (Rotterdam, Netherlands) https://lnkd.in/e7xGkqWu

Terraformation, Head of Commercial Finance (remote, US) https://lnkd.in/eUaCsVbj

Renature, Project Support Officer internship (Amsterdam, Netherlands) https://lnkd.in/evkbifUS