What works: three countries that moved the number
Costa Rica paid landowners to keep forest and forest cover rose from about 40% to close to 60%. Seychelles swapped US$21.6m of debt and protected a third of its ocean. Namibia put a fifth of its land under community conservancies. Three policies a reader could copy.
By David JohnstonConservationist & Biodiversity Economy Practitioner, MUniv, h.c.
The world spends US$7.3 trillion a year against nature and US$220 billion for it. This note is about the second figure, and about three countries where it moved, each through a mechanism that could be copied elsewhere.
Costa Rica: a fuel tax that bought a forest back
In 1987 forest covered as little as 40% of Costa Rica, after decades of clearing for cattle and crops. Today it covers close to 60%. The country did not achieve that with a ban. In 1997, under a forestry law passed the year before, it began paying landowners for the environmental services their trees provide: carbon, water, biodiversity and scenery. The money came mainly from a tax on fuel sales, topped up by private firms and, later, by carbon payments. In 2022 Costa Rica received its first US$16.4 million from the World Bank's carbon fund for 3.28 million tonnes of emissions it had kept in the trees in 2018 and 2019.
The mechanism is transferable. The fuel tax is collected in any case; directing part of it to standing forest pays for a service the economy depends on, through contracts with private landowners rather than state ownership of land. Forest cover recovered because keeping trees became a source of income.
Seychelles: a small debt swap that protected a sea larger than Germany
In 2016 Seychelles exchanged US$21.6 million of foreign debt for a commitment to finance marine conservation at home, the first debt-for-nature swap built around an ocean rather than a forest. The money went into a trust, the Seychelles Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust, which pays for the country's marine spatial plan and for grants to the people who fish and work its waters. On 26 March 2020 the government announced the last of the areas that took its ocean protection from 0.04% of its exclusive economic zone to 30%: 410,000 square kilometres, an area larger than Germany, fully or significantly safeguarded.
US$21.6 million is small by the standards of sovereign finance. The transaction worked because it was tied to a marine spatial plan, a trust designed to outlast changes of government, and a measurable target with a date. The larger conversions that followed, in Belize, Gabon, the Galápagos, El Salvador and Ecuador's Amazon, used the same structure at greater scale.
Namibia: a fifth of the country, owned by the people who live there
Namibia wrote community conservation into law in 1996. Rural communities that form a conservancy gain the right to manage, and to earn from, the wildlife on their communal land. There are now 86 registered conservancies covering 166,184 square kilometres, about a fifth of the country, home to roughly 245,000 people. In 2017 the programme generated N$132.8 million in returns and benefits, including the value of harvested meat, through 54 joint-venture lodge agreements and 56 conservation-hunting agreements. Not every conservancy pays its way: 69 of the 86 generated returns that year and 39 covered their own operating costs, figures the programme publishes itself.
The mechanism is ownership. Until the 1996 amendment, wildlife on communal land brought no income to the people living beside it. Once the income was theirs, elephants, lions and rhino became assets worth keeping, and the land stayed open rather than being fenced and ploughed.
What the three have in common
None of the three waited for a global price on nature. Each redirected part of an existing payment, a fuel tax, a debt service bill, a tourist's spending, to the ecosystem the payment depended on. Each wrote the arrangement into law or a trust so that it survived the government that signed it. And each published a figure, forest cover, square kilometres, income to conservancies, that can be checked.
The US$220 billion a year invested in nature, counted live on the Nature Ticker, is made up of items of this kind.
Sources
- World Bank, Costa Rica's forest conservation pays off, 16 November 2022. Forest cover close to 60% of the country, having shrunk as low as 40% in 1987; first FCPF payment of US$16.4m for 3.28 million tonnes of emission reductions in 2018 and 2019.
- CBD, Programme of Payments for Ecological Services in Costa Rica. Adopted in 1997 under Forestry Law 7575 of 1996; funded primarily through a tax on fuel sales, with private payments and carbon sales.
- The Nature Conservancy, Seychelles achieves 30% marine conservation commitment. US$21.6m of foreign debt exchanged for in-country conservation financing; protection raised from 0.04% to 30% of the exclusive economic zone; 410,000 km².
- State House Seychelles, Seychelles designates 30% of its EEZ as marine protected area, 26 March 2020
- NACSO, Conservation and conservancies. 86 registered conservancies covering 166,184 km², about 244,587 people; the 1996 amendment to the Nature Conservation Ordinance that devolved rights over wildlife and tourism to communities.
- Namibian Chamber of Environment, communal conservancies factsheet. N$132.8m of returns and benefits generated in 2017; 54 joint-venture lodge agreements and 56 conservation-hunting agreements; 69 of 86 conservancies generated returns and 39 covered their own costs.
- UNEP, State of Finance for Nature 2026, 16 January 2026. US$220bn a year into nature-based solutions, of which US$23bn private; US$7.3tn a year against nature.