Rio Conventions Pavilion TV, CBD COP11 (18/10/2012) – Lasse Gustavsson, Executive Director of conservation at WWF, emphasises the necessity for better sources of finance for biodiversity conservation.

Gustavsson stresses that serious amounts of money are needed to operationalise the Nagoya agreements otherwise it will have been ‘conversation not conservation’.

Gustavsson acknowledges that conservation is often a low priority for governments but stresses that this investment in natural capital is key to ensuring stability of food, environment and energy supplies – which few governments would deny are high priorities.

Gustavsson says that he understands that countries want to develop but asserts that that must be within the planet’s ecological boundaries. He stresses that there is little excuse for failing to provide funds for environmental protection, even during a financial crisis.

Gustavsson also emphasises the importance of good monitoring and reporting, arguing that we cannot identify what constitutes sustainable consumption or set effective targets without good knowledge of how we are currently consuming and what the available resource is.