COP26 leaders urged to increase grassroots conservation funding by 14 leading global wildlife conservation donors. Open letter highlights benefits of locally led nature conservation for mitigating climate change and reversing global biodiversity loss.

Today,[Wednesday 27th October], 14 leading global wildlife conservation donors and supporters are calling upon the UK Prime Minister and COP26 leaders, corporations and philanthropists to increase funding for locally led grassroots conservation projects, which play a vital role in mitigating climate change and reversing biodiversity loss around the world.

Despite evidence that locally led, targeted nature conservation – especially in regions worst hit by the climate emergency – is successful in conserving threatened species facing extinction, restoring ecosystems hanging in the balance and mitigating the devasting effects of climate change, only 3% of global climate finance is spent on nature-based solutions. Support for grassroots conservation is just a fraction of that.

Now, the open letter written by charities People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES), Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP), Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund (MBZF), The Rufford Foundation and the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN), and signed by eight other global organisations, is urging UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, COP26 President Alok Sharma, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and other world leaders to invest significant funding into global grassroots conservation projects, to help safeguard the future of life on earth with solutions that are proven to work, before it’s too late.

Nida Al-Fulaij, Conservation Research Manager at PTES explains: “Although climate change is rightly at the forefront of the worlds’ minds, we cannot lose sight of the biodiversity crisis that is also unfolding right before us, often because of climatic impacts. More funding relative to the scale of both crises is urgently needed to support ongoing and future grassroots conservation projects, as many also address the threats and devastating impacts of climate change.”