We understand that Indonesia officially committed to developing market based mechanisms to finance its biodiversity strategy in January, as a follow up to the memorandum of understanding between the country’s ministry of the environment and UK’s DEFRA, and of joining IAPB’s government forum during COP30. Following a meeting with representatives of the UK government in February 2026, Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment announced the establishment of a technical expert group and said it is in the process of identifying pilot projects.
We want to raise the following concerns:
1. Biodiversity credits are unlikely to address the biodiversity crisis;
2. IAPB’s biodiversity credit framework lacks environmental integrity and is thus not a sound basis for Indonesia’s nature credits;
3. It is very doubtful that biodiversity credits can generate additional stable revenues for conservation, given their high regulatory risk, likely high price volatility and likely political instrumentalization to avoid calls for grant payments for conservation from the Global North;
4. Passing a bill on Indigenous rights to ensure that Indigenous peoples must give their free prior and informed consent and can contribute to biodiversity conservation without fear of being criminalized or evicted is a prerequisite to setting up any biodiversity credit scheme; not only is it the right thing to do, but failing to pass it would also most likely create an excessively high reputational risk that would deter potential credit buyers;
We would be delighted to have the opportunity to discuss this important topic with the Biodiversity Credit Expert team.