Happy Tuesday!

In today’s edition:
🌊 Biden administration and the ocean economy

⛵️ Funding for sailing drones

💼 A whole new suite of NatureTech jobs

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🐘 Long Read (1-Min Read)

White House Releases New Strategies to Advance Sustainable Ocean Management

What happened: In the same week they released guidance on the voluntary carbon markets, The White House published three strategies on plans to improve our ability to gather and share insights on Ocean Health and Biodiversity and use those insights for more effective protection. 

Challenges they seek to address:

• Lack of Coordination The nation's ocean waters are vast: The total ocean territory under U.S. management—known as the "U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone"—covers an area larger than all 50 states combined. This has meant research efforts have often been scattered.

• Weak information pipeline: Much of the data collected from research is inaccessible to policymakers and managers who are making decisions on the ground.

• Lack of investment in ocean technology vs Land: One thing we’ve seen over the last year is a real focus from the Biden administration on investing in land based measurement and reporting systems. Now it’s the Ocean’s time to shine.

A tale of three strategies:

• The U.S. National Strategy for a Sustainable Ocean Economy will guide U.S. ocean policies to conserve healthy ecosystems, support resilient communities, and advance economic development

• The National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy will expand the quality and quantity of biodiversity data to help protect and conserve marine ecosystems and maximise the ocean’s benefits to people

• The National Aquatic eDNA Strategy will advance fast, low-cost, and effective eDNA technologies to understand life in the ocean and how it’s changing. The strategy also outlines opportunities to improve and deploy eDNA processes to inform the development of more effective ocean policies.

Why it matters for the economy? The ocean contributes nearly $400 billion to the U.S. economy every year and provides 2.4 million jobs according to NOAA, including fishing, shipping, tourism and energy.

Why it matters for NatureTech: Similar strategies for land measurement and biodiversity saw an uptick in non-dilutive grant funding and government partnerships. This is a big plus for start-ups able to deliver more timely and accurate information on ocean biodiversity.

No silver bullet: This strategy is a first step, but an implementation plan is in the works to outline specific actions tailored to local communities. However, the pace and scale of implementation could be dependent on the outcome of the current US elections.

💬 Snippets for your lift conversations

• Finance: Australia-headquartered asset manager New Forests is preparing to generate biodiversity credits by gathering nature metrics across 37,800 hectares in three African countries

• Finance: In the UK, The South Downs National Park has become the first in the country to launch a voluntary biodiversity credit scheme to enable businesses to invest in “high-ethic, effective nature recovery in partnership with Earthly

• Big business: India’s biggest packaged water company proposes framework to establish water credits for the beverage industry

• Big business: A group of businesses are urging all Members of the European Parliament and EU Member States to support the final adoption of the Nature Restoration Law.

• Funding: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched a $135 million fund to boost biodiversity and expand nature-based solutions in small Island Developing States 

• Funding: China and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) have launched the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, committing $207 million to support biodiversity conservation in developing countries. This fund will focus on conservation, sustainable use, and equitable benefit-sharing of biodiversity.

• Policy: The White House just launched efforts to clean up the Wild West of carbon credit markets — and help them grow.

• Research: Every year, two billion tonnes of municipal waste is produced, 45% of which fails to reach a facility where it can be properly managed. A UNEP report predicts city waste will rise two-thirds by 2050, raising servicing cost to $600 billion

 🎣 Deals

• US-based Saildrone raised a seed round for its unmanned vehicles for ocean mapping 

• US-based Earthshot Labs raised $5.7Mn to help bring together investors, carbon buyers, and land stewards to finance ecological restoration projects.

💭 Little Bytes

📊 Stat: African buffalo herds display voting behavior, in which individuals register their travel preference by standing up, looking in one direction, and then lying back down. Only adult females can vote.

📺️ Watch: The State of Nature Tech with Lucy Almond

💬 Listen: From Inspiration to Implementation: Your Biomimicry Roadmap

📆 Events

• 12 & 13 June -  Forestry & Agriculture Investment Summit - London, UK

• 20 June - IEMA Green Skills Networking Event - London, UK

• 25 & 26 June - Nature Tech Expo 2024 - Leeds, UK

• 25/26 June - Blue Earth Forum - London UK

• 26 June - The Nature Positive Hub at London Climate Action Week 2024 - London, UK

• 26 June - World Bio Markets - London, UK

• 16 July - Using Green Finance to Drive Nature’s Recovery - Online

💼 Jobs

• Lead Biodiversity Scientist @EarthAcre

• Marketing and Research roles @ Colossal Biosciences

• Engineering and Product roles @ Sylvera

• Product Manager @ Perennial

• Multiple Roles @ NatureMetrics

• Software Engineer @ Gaia