By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media
The Bezos Earth Fund announced its pledge of an additional $2 billion to drive its three-part agenda: conservation, restoration, and food systems transformation, as part of its $10 billion commitment to fight climate change, improve nature, and advance environmental justice and economic opportunity.
This commitment adds to a previous $1 billion pledge announced at Climate Week in New York in September 2021 to help create, expand, manage, and monitor protected and conserved areas. This additional $2 billion will fund the restoration of landscapes in Africa and the U.S., the increase of crop and livestock productivity without the need for additional land, the reduction of agricultural emissions, reducing food loss and waste, and meeting the needs of shifting diets.
“To conserve our natural world is to conserve our human species,” said Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, ethologist, conservationist, and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace. “We depend on nature for every breath we take and morsel we eat. We alone can determine its future – an awesome responsibility. This is a hugely welcome announcement and much needed as time is slipping away.”
All funds connected with this $10 billion overall commitment will be fully deployed by 2030, at which time the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals must be achieved.
“Our commitment today supports a three-fold imperative – we must conserve what we have, restore what we’ve lost, and grow what we need in harmony with nature,” said Jeff Bezos. “Investing in nature through both traditional and innovative approaches is essential to combat climate change, enhance biodiversity, protect the beauty of the natural world, and create a prosperous future.”
Landscape Restoration
An allocation of $1 billion has been earmarked for landscape restoration in Africa and the U.S. that will include the planting of trees on degraded areas, revitalizing grasslands, and integrating trees into agricultural farmland.
The Bezos Fund will tie-in with African-owned partners, including AFR100, to deliver benefits at scale on the continent including benefits to the climate scenario, food security, soil fertility, job creation, economic growth, and greater connectivity between protected areas for greater biodiversity.
“Africa is home to the world’s greatest restoration opportunity, with more than 700 million hectares of degraded land that can be restored,” said Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki, CEO, African Union Development Agency-NEPAD. “Africa is the continent most dependent on the land for livelihoods and most vulnerable to climate change. Africa must therefore lead the way. We warmly welcome partnership with ambitious funders like the Bezos Earth Fund.”
In the U.S., funding will be allocated for the restoration of more than 20 landscapes that sequester high levels of carbon, protect biodiversity, and deliver on community benefits. Of these funds, 40 percent will be dedicated to U.S. nature efforts that will directly affect or engage underserved communities.
Food Systems Transformation
Another $1 billion will be earmarked to transform food and agriculture systems in a manner that support life without degrading the planet, by way of increasing crop yields while also shrinking the agricultural footprint, reducing food loss and waste, shifting diets toward more plant-based structures, and increasing the sustainability of agricultural supply chains.
“This commitment recognizes the urgency of the situation before us,” said Christiana Figueres, former U.N. climate chief and founding partner of Global Optimism. “For too long we have ignored the solutions that nature provides for us. Protection and restoration of our Earth is key to protecting and restoring our future. Key to our success will be reforming the way in which we produce and consume food, which is driving global warming, species loss, and inequality, rather than nourishing ourselves and our planet.”
Through the distribution of these funds, the Bezos Earth Fund will focus on countries and regions that harbor the greatest need, offer the greatest opportunity, and where there is the strongest commitment to conserving and restoring nature while prioritizing local communities.
So Much Intention, But No Clear Picture
This year has seen numerous funds and initiatives being launched for the purpose of investing in regenerative and sustainable themes, ie: natural capital.
However, there is a lack of organized data indicating how much money has been already invested in natural climate solutions, or where new opportunities for investment exist. Now to help governments and investors target their investment dollars, the world’s largest nature policy tracker has been launched just prior to the COP26 summit.
The Nature-Based Solutions Policy Tracker is the first project of its kind to use AI and machine learning to identify legislation and investment projects for nature-based solutions. Researchers from Metabolic and its AI partner Arboretica have created algorithms to search millions of web pages connected to legislation and/or funding opportunities, and to identify policies which are then assessed according to pre-set criteria.
“We search all online open sourced information in order to get the most complete picture of available policies,” Louisa Durkin, project lead, Metabolica, told Forbes. “This includes both direct (i.e. government policy) and indirect information (i.e. an article written about a policy).”
The project is slated to run for three years, however, early findings are interesting. For example, Forbes noted that there’s a lack of policies referenced to protect or build healthy soils, regenerative agriculture, or carbon farming practices.
Instead, analysis has found that solutions are being concentrated on coastal restoration projects (the focus of 13.6 percent of policies), deforestation (11.4 percent), community lead conservation (10.8 percent), and reforestation (10.4 percent), despite the outsized ability of regenerative agriculture to sequester carbon.
Policies are great, but what’s happening on the ground? To connect the dots, a catalogue highlighting 100 nature-based solution projects across 80 countries delivering on disparate climate benefits has also been released.
This database is currently in the process of being configured. However, once complete, Forbes noted that its findings and projects will be integrated into the NCS Action Mapper platform designed by The Nature Conservancy and Nature4Climate, to provide decision makers with specific data on nature solutions projects across geographies.
– Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@