You have funded conservation for decades. The biodiversity funding gap is wider than ever.
This is not a spending problem. It is a structural one. The mechanisms we use to finance nature are fundamentally misaligned with how ecosystems actually work.
the paradox of conservation spending
Global investment in nature-based solutions stands at roughly $133 billion annually. To meet biodiversity and land degradation targets, this needs to triple by 2030 and quadruple by 2050. The gap between what we spend and what ecosystems need is estimated at $700–950 billion per year.
Yet the problem is not merely insufficient capital. It is that the capital we do deploy is structured in ways that guarantee failure.
1. time horizon mismatch
The core failure: Conservation projects run on 3–5 year grant cycles. Ecosystems operate on multi-decadal and intergenerational timescales.
Evaluations consistently show that post-project futures diverge from expectations once funding ends. Restoration that took years to establish can collapse in months without ongoing stewardship. Species recovery programs halt mid-trajectory. Watershed protections lapse.
Conventional cost-benefit analysis makes this worse by heavily discounting long-term environmental benefits. A forest protected for 500 years is valued nearly the same as one protected for 50—because standard discount rates render the distant future worthless.
The structural truth: Ecological timescales require perpetual commitment. Grant cycles cannot deliver perpetuity.
2. project-based fragmentation
The core failure: Even nominally "long-term" vehicles like conservation trust funds (CTFs) typically operate via project grants, reinforcing fragmented, episodic action.
Funders emphasize short-term, visible outputs—hectares restored, trainings delivered, species counted—rather than slow, systemic change like governance reform, soil regeneration, or watershed recovery. This creates perverse incentives toward "easy wins" that photograph well but do not compound.
The project model also neglects enabling infrastructure: the legal frameworks, economic policies, and institutional capacity that determine whether any individual project can persist.
The structural truth: Nature is a continuous system. Projectized funding treats it as a series of discrete interventions.
3. capital inefficiency and market risk
The core failure: Conservation trust funds tie up large amounts of capital to generate modest income, with relatively high administrative and transaction costs.
Endowed funds face volatility, inflation, and currency risk—especially in emerging markets where biodiversity is concentrated. A CTF designed to fund "permanent" protection can see its purchasing power erode significantly over decades.
Secure endowment income can also reduce pressure for performance and innovation. When the money arrives regardless of outcomes, complacency sets in.
The structural truth: Locking capital in low-yield endowments is not the same as creating perpetual funding flows.
4. governance capture and power imbalances
The core failure: Funding decisions reflect donor priorities rather than local or Indigenous priorities, leading to misalignments with on-the-ground needs and knowledge.
CTF literature documents politicized boards, donor-dominated agendas, weak national ownership, and dynamics that can reinforce financial dependence. Local organizations and Indigenous communities—often the most effective stewards—struggle to meet accreditation requirements and receive a small share of available finance.
Funders and implementers are typically more accountable upward (to donors and boards) than downward (to communities and ecosystems).
The structural truth: Conservation finance flows to those who can navigate bureaucracy, not necessarily to those who can protect nature.
5. MRV failures and weak feedback loops
The core failure: There are few agreed standards and metrics for biodiversity outcomes. Robust monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) is technically complex and expensive.
This raises transaction costs that deter smaller projects and local actors. It creates additionality problems—how do you prove you protected something that would not have been protected otherwise? It enables gaming and greenwashing.
Worse, most evaluations focus on outputs during the funded period. There is limited follow-up after projects end. Funders do not learn what actually persists or fails over time. Renewal and scaling decisions are not systematically linked to impact data.
The structural truth: Without robust, long-term MRV, conservation finance operates blind.
6. post-project collapse
The core failure: Studies document that many conservation and adaptation interventions lose effectiveness or collapse once external funding and technical support are withdrawn.
Funding often under-invests in local institutional and leadership capacity, making communities dependent on external experts and intermediaries. When the project ends, the capacity leaves with it.
Trust deficits compound the problem. Unequal power relations, lack of transparency, and insufficient recognition of local rights generate mistrust and resistance—ultimately weakening long-term commitment to place.
The structural truth: Conservation that depends on continuous external intervention is not conservation. It is life support.
7. nature credits and greenwashing risk
The core failure: Emerging biodiversity credit and nature markets face serious integrity, transparency, and accountability challenges—mirroring problems seen in carbon markets.
Critics argue that credits can be misused to justify harmful activities, despite the largely irreversible nature of biodiversity loss. Without tackling harmful subsidies and aligning broader financial flows, innovative instruments risk treating symptoms while underlying drivers of nature loss remain unchanged.
The structural truth: Offsetting does not work for irreversible loss. Markets without integrity accelerate the problem.
the common thread
These seven failures share a root cause: conservation finance is designed for human institutional timescales, not ecological ones.
Grant cycles match budget years. Project phases match staff rotations. Endowments match foundation lifespans. None of these match the timescales on which forests regenerate, watersheds recover, or species rebound.
The funding gap is not just a quantity problem. It is a temporal architecture problem.
what would structural alignment look like?
Imagine funding infrastructure that:
- Releases capital across preset intervals—from months to centuries—matching ecological timescales
- Operates automatically, without requiring continuous human decision-making or fundraising
- Routes value transparently, with every flow traceable and auditable
- Cannot be captured by political shifts or institutional turnover
- Compounds over time rather than depleting
- Funds stewardship in perpetuity, not projects in isolation
This is not hypothetical. This infrastructure exists.
Ensurance proceeds are onchain vesting streams that release funding across durations from 3 months to 512 years. They create perpetual, automated stewardship flows—without grant cycles, without endowment drawdowns, without institutional dependency.
The mechanism is live. The streams are flowing.