Private Funders of the New ‘Protecting Our Planet Challenge’ Announce $5 Billion Commitment to Protect and Conserve 30% of Planet by 2030
Re:wild, a co-founding member of the Global Rewilding Alliance, announces that nine organisations have joined together to pledge $5 billion over the next 10 years to support the creation, expansion, management and monitoring of protected and conserved areas of land, inland water and sea, working with Indigenous Peoples, local communities, civil society and governments. This marks the largest private funding commitment ever to biodiversity conservation.
The announcement was made today at the Transformative Action for Nature and People High Level event, bringing together several heads of state and ministers, as well as leaders from the worlds of finance, philanthropy, civil society and Indigenous Communities to commit to momentous action for nature, climate and people.
This commitment to ensure 30 percent of the planet is protected and preserved in the most important places for biodiversity by 2030 is being made jointly by Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin; Bezos Earth Fund; Bloomberg Philanthropies; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; Nia Tero; Rainforest Trust; Re:wild; Wyss Foundation; and the Rob and Melani Walton Foundation. These private funders have made this commitment to help address three of the planet’s most life-threatening crises: the climate crisis, extinction crisis, and health crisis – with an emphasis on the role of nature and the leadership of Indigenous Peoples in solving them.
Specifically, these private funders, that have launched the Protecting Our Planet Challenge, are supporting projects around the globe that will help achieve the 30×30 initiative as proposed by the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, a group of 70 nations. Earlier this month, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which includes governments and more than 1,400 civil society organisation and Indigenous Peoples’ organisations, also endorsed the 30×30 goal as part of the post-2020 framework of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
Mts Iglit-Baco Natural Park (Photo by James Slade, Re:wild)