Keynote: Nature-based Solutions

Speaker: Will McGoldrick, Regional Managing Director, The Nature Conservancy–Asia Pacific

Thank you for the warm introduction and good morning, everyone.

It’s wonderful to be part of the event and I thank the Carbon Market Institute for the opportunity and for their sustained leadership to build robust, high integrity carbon markets.

I would also like to thank the Government of Singapore for their continued leadership in this space.

Now, more than ever, we need governments to be staying firm in their commitment to accelerated climate action, as we are seeing here in Singapore.

As mentioned during the introduction, my name is Will McGoldrick and I’m Managing Director of The Nature Conservancy’s Asia Pacific region.

For those who may be unfamiliar with us, The Nature Conservancy is a global nonprofit organization with over 5,000 staff working in nearly 80 countries.

In Asia Pacific, we work across 15 countries and territories, including our newest office here in Singapore, which was established in recent years.

As a global team, we’re focused on building the science and the solutions needed to address the two biggest challenges of our time: climate change and biodiversity loss.

Indeed, these two challenges disproportionately affect nature and the people of our region.

Like many of you, I am sure, I’ve dedicated most of my working life to make sure climate change and nature conservation at the top of the “to do” list for governments, corporations, and communities.

And it has been incredibly encouraging to see both topics gain much more attention and investment over recent years.

It certainly feels like we’re in the mainstream now, rather than being on the margins.

And what has been particularly exciting for me has been the growing recognition of the role of what we call “nature-based solutions.”

There is now an understanding that by protecting, restoring, and sustainably managing natural systems, such as grasslands, forests, and wetlands, we can help reduce emissions, with multiple benefits for people and nature.

There has been a strong focus on how to use the carbon market to drive investment into nature-based solutions.
I want to be crystal clear: for those of us who spend their days grappling with how to incentivize nature conservation, this interest from carbon market participants is very much appreciated and gives us hope that we can find a way to protects, restore, and sustainably manage the natural systems that we all value so much.

Indeed, if I had to nominate one barrier to large scale nature conservation, it is the lack of funding and financial incentives.

This presents itself in many ways, depending on who you talk to.

For a government, the concern may be about how to continue to stimulate economic opportunities and improve livelihoods in rural areas.

For an agribusiness it may be how to deliver economic returns for shareholders.

And for mums and dads in village communities it may be about how to earn an income from their land so they can put food on the table and send their kids to school.

For each of these stakeholders, the most straightforward way to achieve their economic goals right now is to destroy natural systems.

To be blunt, it is easier to make a buck from destroying nature than it is to make buck from nature conservation.

If we want to reverse this reality, we need present options that change this economic calculus for governments, corporations, mums, and dads.

That’s why my teams have so excited by the growing interest and investment in naturebased solutions, driven by the carbon market.

But, as many of you are acutely aware, unlocking the full potential of nature-based solutions is not necessarily easy or straightforward.

Indeed, the increased focus on nature-based solutions has also \ attracted increased scrutiny from the media and from civil society groups.

There have been strong criticisms about the integrity of some nature-based carbon projects.

I don’t want to get into an argument about the veracity of these claims.

Instead, I want to focus on how to rebuild confidence in nature-based solutions, so that we don’t let this immense opportunity slip by.

Indeed, from my experience, when they’re done right, nature-based solutions can deliver incredible benefits—for the climate, for nature, and for people.

They do this by:

• Delivering a real and measurable benefit for the climate by either preventing natural carbon stocks from being released into the atmosphere or speeding up sequestration rates.
• By delivering real and measurable benefits for nature, such as safeguarding or improving biodiversity.
• And by delivering real and measurable benefits for people, including increased income opportunities, as well as enhancing resilience in face of the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

Yet, there are barriers to these high-integrity projects, which TNC is finding out itself first-hand through carbon projects we are working on in the region.

My teams have learned many lessons as we engage in feasibility studies with communities in places like the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Mongolia, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand.

One critical lesson is the importance of deep collaboration with communities. For example, in the Solomon Islands, where we have been working for over 30 years, TNC was approached by a community struggling with loggers knocking at their door and asking what other options they must keep their forest standing while also providing some financial security.

This is a country with tremendous natural resources, from timber to gold and nickel deposits. But it’s also one of the region’s poorest nations. It has GDP per capita of about two thousand US dollars, which by comparison, is just 3% of per capita GDP in Australia.

And unfortunately, unsustainable logging, mining, and associated infrastructure are rapidly changing the landscape.

We are in the initial stages of co-designing a project with the community in a partnership model, building their capacity, governance structures and helping them to make decisions for the future of their forest and children.

The key to success here has been the trusting relationships TNC built over decades with this community. They’ve seen the consequences of deforestation and unsustainable management around them, and together we are crafting this project from the ground up.

Another important consideration for high-quality projects is the increased cost of things like Free Prior Informed Consent, Gender and Equity, carbon awareness and capacity building.

While these types of activities cost money, they can also help to future-proof the project by providing solid foundations and long-term buy-in for the behavior change that needs to occur for a successful carbon project.

For example, in Mongolia, we are working with community-based organizations and herders to build understanding of the impact of farming on grasslands, and to discuss strategies for improving grassland management.

While grasslands do not store as much carbon her hectare as a rainforest or mangrove forest, their vast area makes this natural store very significant globally.

Our aim is to incentivize behavior change through soil carbon credits. To do this, we need to deliver training, establish governance structures, co-design equitable benefit sharing mechanisms and improve understanding of soil carbon science.

From our experience, while taking these kinds of steps is time- and resource-intensive, they are necessary if the project is to be of high-quality and provide triple benefits.

Indeed, I would argue, in many cases these steps are necessary for the project to work at all.

I’m not suggesting any of this is easy and I know many of you here today will be grappling with the stark realities of trying to run a business while delivering lasting impact in the world.

One solution is for public and private grant funding to invest in the early feasibility stages to ensure credits delivered are high-integrity and provide equitable community benefit.

Indeed, this is where I believe NGOs can play a really crucial role.
An example is the Southeast Asia Climate and Nature-based Solution Coalition, or SCeNe for short.

SCeNe is a collaboration of eight international NGOs which is launching a nature-based solutions incubator that will direct grant funding, technical support and capacity development to frontline organizations across the region, with the goal of enabling greater participation in the carbon market.

The SCeNe partners have developed projects in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, including efforts to protect ancient forests in North Mindanao and restore habitats in North Sumatra of threatened species like Sumatran orangutans, tigers, gibbons, and helmeted hornbills.

Looking beyond government and philanthropic funding, if you’re downstream in the carbon market, I think you can also play a crucial role by being choosy.

Purchasing high-quality carbon credits and signaling the value of these projects by paying a higher price, will help create the needed incentive to build the pipeline of high integrity projects in Asia Pacific.

I am sure many of you will have other ideas on how we can reduce the barriers to high quality, high integrity, nature-based carbon projects, and I would certainly welcome the opportunity to explore how we can work together on this.

I’ll just end with a plea, that you don’t let the negative media attention weaken resolve to change that economic calculus when it comes to nature.

I encourage you stay focused on the immense opportunity we have in front of us and what means for livelihoods throughout Asia Pacific.

To walk away from the opportunity is to commit to business as usual and that doesn’t bode well for any of us.

Thank you.
ENDS