119 experts from academia and civil society have signed an open letter highlighting their concerns about and rejection of the so-called “nature positive economy”, currently being promoted by the World Economic Forum, the WWF, some big lobbies and the European Commission amongst others, ahead of the COP15. While its name sounds innocuous and cheerful enough, …
EU restoration law: discreetly promoting the financialisation of biodiversity destruction
On 22 June 2022, the European Commission published a legislative proposal for a nature restoration law. While this proposal contains many welcome measures, such as curbing the use of pesticides, it also puts forward very worrying proposals to put a price on nature, to base critical conservation on short-term cost-benefit analyses, and to set up …
UK biodiversity unit market: trading permits to destroy nature as a way to protect it?
UK's forthcoming biodiversity net gain requirement and its related proposal to create a market in biodiversity units raise serious concerns and questions. There is absolutely no need for such a market from a conservation perspective; on the contrary, past experience suggests that such a market will likely weaken conservation outcomes. Launching such a market would …