Protecting all forms of life in Belize has become a national priority. Actions to sustain that web of life is now being undertaken with an impetus to make it financially viable and sustainable.
The BIOFIN Phase Two project was launched on Thursday at the Kiki Witz Center in Belmopan. On board to lead the launching was the Hon. Dr. Omar Figueroa, Minister of Forestry, the Environment and Sustainable Development. Also present was BIOFIN coordinator Hannah Martinez, who operates within the Forestry Department.
Dr. Figueroa said that BIOFIN was a global initiative that was locally being executed to track public and private investments in biodiversity management; in order to find gaps and identify options for improvement. He also made clear that several sectors are highly dependent on an intact biodiversity.
“The success of two of Belize’s major economic forces tourism and agriculture, both have a dependence on the health of our nation’s biodiversity. While links between tourism and our biodiversity might be clear, conventional economic thinking may not readily identify the links between the agricultural sector and biodiversity. Let me therefore highlight that agriculture is also greatly dependent on biodiversity, through ecosystem services such as pollination, soil generation and catchment of water,” he said.
The BIOFIN Phase Two Country Implementation Strategy aims to provide direction throughout the second phase of BIOFIN to implement identified finance solutions contained within the Biodiversity Finance Plan and achieve the national vision for biodiversity within the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.
Belize launched the first phase of the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) in 2016 through the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, the Environment, Sustainable Development and Immigration. The project was developed in response to the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP-10) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which identified the need for better information on current expenditures and financing needs. The first phase consisted of four outputs: A Policy and Institutional Review, the Biodiversity Expenditure Review, the Financial Needs Assessment, and the development of the Biodiversity Finance Plan. Collectively, these assessments aimed to analyze the landscape for biodiversity finance in Belize and identify a way forward through generating new revenue sources, realigning current expenditures, avoiding future expenditures and improved delivery of resources for improved biodiversity management in Belize.
The Government and people of Belize have long recognized the importance of Belize’s natural resources as the foundation “brick and mortar” of Belize’s development. Key sectors such as agriculture, tourism, fisheries, and forestry (all-natural resource-based) have contributed to more than 49% of Belize’s GDP in 2016 (SIB, 2016). It is envisioned that BIOFIN in Belize will add great value by facilitating the process of providing decision-makers in environmental management, finance and planning with economic information about the value and trade-offs among different policies and investment choices, including evaluating how valuable ecosystem services may be affected by changes in ecosystems and how they can provide increased revenue to the Belizean economy.
Biodiversity finance is the practice of raising and managing capital and using financial incentives to support sustainable biodiversity management. It includes private and public financial resources used to conserve biodiversity, investments in commercial activities that produce positive biodiversity outcomes and the value of the transactions in biodiversity-related markets such as habitat banking.
During the period 2012 to 2017, the estimated Belizean biodiversity expenditure amounted to BZ$302.5 million or an average of BZ$60.5 million annually. International donors financed 64.25% of that biodiversity expenditure. More specifically, $27,390,830.00 was spent for biodiversity planning and development and $27,366,573 on biodiversity awareness and knowledge.
As examples of biodiversity financing, Ecuador has generated over USD 3 million per year for the conservation of native forests through its ‘Socio Bosque’ programe, a national incentive scheme which covers more than 882,000 hectares and has benefitted more than 90,000 participants since its establishment in 2008.
Another perfect example is Costa Rica’s national programe, which generated revenue from a variety of mechanisms including tax and conditional financial incentives. The national programe receives actual payments for ecosystem services.
BIOFIN was initiated in response to the urgent global need to divert more finance from all possible sources towards global and national biodiversity goals. A preliminary assessment estimated that the global investment required amounts to between 130 and 440 billion U.S. dollars annually. However, the current global expenditures for biodiversity conservation amount at 52 billion U.S. dollars annually according to a report from the Global Canopy Programe. Therefore, a bottom-up approach was considered as most appropriate to address the biodiversity finance challenges in a comprehensive manner, building a sound business case for finance solutions implementation in biodiversity conservation.
Biodiversity includes living organisms and ecosystems which underpin human well-being and economies by providing the essentials to healthy and productive human life such as clean air, food security and fresh water. Investments in biodiversity are investments in sustainable development, contributing directly to poverty reduction, economic sustainability and the full range of Sustainable Development Goals. By maintaining biodiversity and ecosystems, we are retaining the ability of the planet to sustain our prosperity.
Biodiversity, in its broadest sense, is the richness of life on earth. Biodiversity is defined under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as: ‘The variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.’ Biodiversity occurs at all levels–genetic, species, and ecosystem–and it is often best illustrated by considering the wide variety of plant, animal, and microorganism species that exist across the planet. To date, around 1.8 million different species have been discovered and documented, but this number only scratches the surface; estimates of the total number of species on earth and in the oceans range from 2 – 100 million, with a best working estimate of around 8 to 9 million different species alive on our planet.
