Dubai, UAE (December 8, 2023) – In a groundbreaking show of global unity, leaders across diverse sectors have issued an open letter demanding major reforms in the global financial system. Their appeal specifically asks finance industry and political chiefs to adopt Integrated Landscape Finance (ILF) to combat escalating global challenges, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and food and water insecurity. The letter emphasizes the critical need for a coordinated, nature-positive financial approach to address these interconnected issues effectively.
1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People (1000L) sponsored the open letter after a series of meetings between public and private finance executives, community land managers, government representatives, academics, and civil society heads in 2023. 1000L finance experts working in sectors from agriculture to regional development have found that the funding already earmarked to combat multiple crises doesn’t flow to the local communities best positioned to take up the fight.
Current investment approaches do not provide direct funding, concentrate too narrowly on individual projects or issues with short time horizons, misalign with local needs, and fail to engage local stakeholders. Further, they do not sufficiently mitigate risk for investors or link activities that impact each other, such as considering the interdependencies between water use, agriculture, forestry, and biodiversity. But solutions come into focus at the scale of landscapes.
The letter introduces ILF as a transformative, holistic solution, that aims to direct financial resources to community-led, nature-positive initiatives, fostering collaborative efforts across sectors and building resilient, sustainable investment portfolios and supply chains.
The ILF approach aligns investments to meet the interconnected challenges of our world. The approach has received backing from organizations dedicated to advancing key global agendas, including the Global Biodiversity Framework and the Paris Climate Agreement.
The letter outlines a set of priority actions for leaders, urging them to:
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- Invest in locally-led development, conservation, and adaptation initiatives.
- Transition from short-term project-based funding to long-term landscape and territorial-scale projects.
- Fund local multi-stakeholder alliances and processes that coordinate landscape-wide investment portfolios.
- Source investments from projects developed by local communities managing their landscapes sustainably.
- Collaborate and coordinate across sectors to enhance project impact.
- Structure large financial flows to fund integrated portfolios across entire landscapes or territories.
The letter concludes with a plea to harness and redirect financial resources toward solutions that embrace the interconnections between human and natural activities on the ground.
“This open letter underscores the urgency and the necessity of immediate, cohesive measures. Now is the time for transformative action–our efforts must focus on the sufficiently broad scale of landscapes,” said 1000L Chair Dr. Sara Scherr, an agricultural and resource economist. “We believe this letter can spur global financiers and policymakers to rethink the status quo. It’s not just a blueprint for action; it’s a manifesto for a new era of financial innovation that supports and sustains life in all its forms.”
To read and sign the letter, visit https://landscapes.global/finance-for-future/. For media inquiries, please contact Michael Keller at mkeller@ecoagriculture.org.
About 1000L: The 1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People (1000L) initiative represents a radical collaboration aimed at accelerating landscape efforts to achieve multiple crucial objectives. These goals include sustaining and restoring ecosystems, fostering rural prosperity, and confronting the challenges posed by climate change. The initiative is convened by EcoAgriculture Partners and is co-led by several notable organizations, including Rainforest Alliance, Commonland, Conservation International, Tech Matters, and the United Nations Development Programme.
