Human wellbeing depends on a stable climate and healthy natural environment. And yet nature is in decline everywhere due to destructive economic activity. The consequences are increasingly clear, with more frequent wildfires, intense storms and floods, crop failure, fisheries collapse, pandemics and spreading tropical diseases, ubiquitous ‘forever chemicals’ and microplastics, mass migration and ensuing social conflict. These problems are linked and ultimately derive from human behaviour: the things we value or neglect, the choices we make and how they affect other people.
There is no single or simple solution to the environmental crisis. Transformation of our economic system is required. We must find ways to do less environmental harm by adopting low-carbon, renewable, circular and regenerative products and practices. At the same time, we need to invest much more in inclusive conservation and restoration of nature, for the benefit of all.
The Katoomba Group is a global network of people working to mobilise public funding and private capital to conserve and restore nature in ways that empower Indigenous and local communities. Established in Australia in early 2000 under the leadership of Forest Trends, the Katoomba Group has met 28 times in 16 countries since then. Participants come from international agencies, national and local governments, businesses big and small, public and private financial institutions, Indigenous and local community groups, non-profit and scientific organisations. Group members participate in an individual capacity and not as representatives of the organisations with which they are affiliated.
For its 25th anniversary, the Katoomba Group reconvened where it all began, with a Conference on ‘Real Value for Nature’ on 3 October 2024, at Taronga Zoo Sydney. This was followed by an expert workshop in Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains from 4-6 October, where participants from Australia and around the world reviewed progress in mobilising markets and finance for nature and people over the past 25 years, identified lessons learned, and mapped priorities for the coming years.
It was fitting to host these gatherings in Australia, where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have continuously cared for the environment for millennia, as the oldest living culture in the world. The participants paid their respects to Elders past and present, and collectively committed to deeper listening to Aboriginal and Torres Strait and other Indigenous voices globally. We also committed to comprehensive and continuous involvement of Indigenous peoples in all aspects of our work.
Key messages from the Katoomba Group meetings in Australia to the Global Nature Positive Summit and related processes are set out below:
Indigenous Peoples must be leaders in the transition to Nature Positive economies[1]. This is true everywhere but especially in Australia, where there is growing recognition of the deep knowledge and ability of Indigenous communities to guide the conservation, restoration and management of nature for the benefit of everyone.
International meetings scheduled over the next three years offer an opportunity to renew existing commitments and increase ambition, while also strengthening synergies between multilateral environmental agreements, notably the CBD, the UNFCCC, and the UNCCD. Australia’s leadership on the Nature Positive agenda is an important contribution to global environmental policy processes, but only if it is backed by integrated action on the ground.
A Nature Positive future requires accelerated reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and increased carbon removals, to enable a rapid transition to a net zero emissions economy by 2050 or earlier. The net zero transition must be grounded in the Environmental Mitigation Hierarchy, which prioritises the avoidance and reduction in harm at source. The transition also requires extended responsibility for emissions, wherever they occur; credible carbon accounting; increased transparency and consistent disclosures; as well as high integrity, independent verification of emissions and mitigation actions.
Progress towards a Nature Positive economy requires urgent action to protect threatened terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems from harmful activities, such as deforestation. We call on the governments of Australia and New South Wales, as co-hosts of the Global Nature Positive Summit, to reform outdated environmental policy frameworks, establish truly independent Environmental Protection Authorities, and ensure sufficient funding to deliver actionable, robust and timely information on changing environmental conditions.
Stronger protections for nature must be in place in order to deploy human and financial capital in a credible way for conservation and restoration. Governance and finance for nature conservation and restoration must go beyond merely halting degradation to facilitate a rapid transition to a Nature Positive economy that restores ecosystem functions and balance and renews human connections to nature in an integrated way.
Markets and financing for climate and nature are key mechanisms to support the transition to a nature positive economy. To deliver their full potential, market-based mechanisms must be integrated, transparent and subject to robust social safeguards that ensure Free Prior and Informed and Continuing Consent, as well as equitable benefit-sharing arrangements.
Indigenous peoples, local communities, farmers and smallholders are critical partners in delivering a Nature Positive future. They must be supported to lead and own carbon and nature finance and market ventures in ways that create new jobs, enhance resilience and secure our food systems. Benefits for nature and people should not be seen as “co-benefits” of environmental finance, but as “core benefits” that underpin all investment decisions.
Robust accounting and disclosures of environmental impacts and dependencies by public and private entities is necessary to drive the rapid redeployment of finance to support more equitable, climate-friendly and nature positive outcomes. Countries should move quickly to establish mandatory reporting, aligned with the recommendations of the TCFD and TNFD.
As a contribution to the agenda set out above, members of the Katoomba Group meeting in Australia agreed to a range of new initiatives, including:
Support Indigenous leadership and youth engagement in environmental finance, notably the National Indigenous Environmental Research Network launched by NAILSMA in Australia.
Develop coordinated positions and inputs to multilateral environmental agreements and related initiatives, notably the TNFD and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, including the timely release of a Removals Standard that aligns with IPCC accounting for forestry.
Identify opportunities to raise new and additional private finance for nature, such as buyers’ roundtables, advanced market commitments, treating ecosystems as public utilities, etc.
Build awareness and capacity for natural capital accounting in business and provide timely data on natural capital impacts and finance initiatives for nature, starting in Australia.
Communicate and engage stakeholders everywhere on the potential, limitations and opportunities to strengthen market-based tools for nature.
Given the urgency of winding down fossil fuel extraction and consumption, we call on Australia and other countries to ensure that all fossil fuel projects pay a major share of revenues into sovereign funds, with the proceeds used to protect, enhance and restore nature. Precedents for this can be found around the world, including the Alaska Permanent Fund and the Land and Water Conservation fund in the US, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and others. Australia should establish similar funding arrangements, with a substantial share of revenues channelled via Indigenous peoples, who are likely to be among the most affected by climate change and also among the best stewards of nature.
[1] This statement uses the term ‘nature positive’ as articulated by the Nature Positive Initiative (https://www.naturepositive.org/app/uploads/2024/02/The-Definition-of-Nature-Positive.pdf).
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