Bezos Earth Fund boosts marine conservation with $24.5 million
By Simon Jessop
LONDON, Dec 9 (Reuters) – The world’s largest climate philanthropy has given $24.5 million to protect coastal ecosystems as part of a plan to create the planet’s first transboundary marine biosphere reserve, its chief nature officer told Reuters.
The four Bezos Earth Fund grants are intended to help local communities and organizations protect key marine areas in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador.
The grants are part of a plan to provide $1 billion to meet the global goal of protecting 30 percent of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. As part of the “Protecting Our Planet Challenge” with 10 other philanthropies, the donor group aims to provide $5 billion over the same period.
To date, the Bezos Earth Fund has deployed nearly $700 million – and the broader coalition more than $3 billion – of a total of $5 billion.
The largest of the recently announced grants – $13.85 million – would go to an organization called Re:wild to help its partners create and strengthen coastal reserves and nursery areas for hammerhead sharks, turtles and other marine species.
“This is an extremely important area for species migration,” said Cristian Samper, nature manager at the Bezos Earth Fund. “The only way to protect this place is to do it cross-border.”
In two years, the four countries have tripled the size of protected seas, to more than 600,000 square kilometers (231,660 square miles) in 10 distinct zones, and the goal is now to create a unique biosphere reserve, he said.
“It will be the first in the world,” Samper said, adding that the Fund was also discussing a similar reserve in the Pacific, five times larger than the continental United States.
The fund agreed to spend $100 million to help the Pacific region implement the global biodiversity target and would announce a second round of grants in 2026.
“As far as moving the needle toward 30 x 30, that’s exactly the kind of work you need to do.”
(Reporting by Simon Jessop, editing by William Maclean)
