Fauna & Flora’s Enterprise & Finance team supports the establishment and growth of sustainable financing initiatives, to generate revenues that help underpin the running of conservation activities in key landscapes and contribute to the sustainable livelihoods of communities.
Our team of experts works with local communities and private sector partners to develop financially viable business models with visible positive impact on people and nature.
As well as developing sustainable finance mechanisms such as micro-loans, sustainable supply chains and locally led ecotourism, we are exploring innovations such as inclusive conservation finance, insurance and biodiversity funds that have clear positive impacts on nature and people at site level.
A kiosk selling handmade crafts to tourists on the border of the mountain gorillas’ protected area, Rwanda. © Steph Baker / Fauna & Flora
What is sustainable financing?
The Conservation Finance Alliance defines conservation finance as ‘mechanisms and strategies that generate, manage and deploy financial resources and align incentives to achieve nature conservation outcomes.’ Making this process sustainable involves finding ways to generate future financial capital that can be reinvested in people and nature.
Why is sustainable finance important for conservation?
Lemongrass essential oil micro-enterprise in Tatey Leu, Cambodia. © Tim Bergman / Fauna & Flora
Increases community engagement
Beekeeping enterprise products in Príncipe. © Laura Benitez / Fauna & Flora
Diversifies financing and increases resilience
Lemongrass essential oil micro-enterprise in Tatey Leu, Cambodia. © Tim Bergman / Fauna & Flora
Reduces dependency on grant funding
Cacao harvest. © Helen Nyul / Fauna & Flora
Increases private sector engagement in conservation
Case study
Lionfish on the menu in Türkiye
Working with in-country partner Akdeniz Koruma Derneği (AKD), our team is helping to generate consumer demand for edible invasive fish, including lionfish, and encourage local small-scale fishers to focus on non-native species, relieving the pressure on native fish stocks in the Mediterranean.
Learn moreAkdeniz Koruma Derneği
In its first year alone, AKD’s new venture worked directly with fishers from 22 cooperatives, purchased five tonnes of edible invasive species from small-scale fishers and sold more than 2.5 tonnes, supporting income generation for well over 500 beneficiaries, including fishers and dependents.
Zafer Kizilkaya
President, Akdeniz Koruma Derneği (Mediterranean Conservation Society)
In its first year alone, AKD’s new venture worked directly with fishers from 22 cooperatives, purchased five tonnes of edible invasive species from small-scale fishers and sold more than 2.5 tonnes, supporting income generation for well over 500 beneficiaries, including fishers and dependents.
Zafer Kizilkaya
President, Akdeniz Koruma Derneği (Mediterranean Conservation Society)
Sustainable finance in action
The Enterprise & Finance team’s portfolio of sustainable financing initiatives ranges from forest-friendly cocoa in Liberia and gibbon-friendly coffee in Myanmar to wildlife tourism in Belize and artisanal honey production in Romania.
Gibbon-friendly coffee production
Since 2012, Fauna & Flora has been working with Asho Chin Communities Association (ACCA), to reduce the deforestation of the endangered western hoolock gibbon’s habitat and develop sustainable coffee agroforestry as an alternative to shifting cultivation. In 2017, we began working with Genius Coffee to select a coffee plantation site. Since then, we have provided both technical and financial support to ACCA to develop the coffee value chain and improve local livelihoods through stable incomes from coffee production.
Sustainable coffee agroforestry, Myanmar. © Kyaw Kyaw Naing / Fauna & Flora
Coffee cultivation and gibbon conservation go hand in hand in Myanmar.
Support our work
If you represent a charitable trust or foundation and would like to talk to a member of our team, contact [email protected].
If you would like to support us immediately, consider donating today.
Donate nowAbdulah (left) and Havis (right) Residents of Durian Rambun Village, Indonesia, selecting anise trees to be harvested. © Edy Susanto / Fauna & Flora
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