I am in Oslo today for a meeting with my colleagues. The time difference with China is 6 hours. However, I still managed to join a 2-hour call with departments and branches in western China of the People’s Bank of China (the central bank), starting at 4 AM Central European Time (10 AM in China) on Friday!
I hope to offer advice so biodiversity finance can advance on the Tibetan Plateau in western China, where the ecosystem is fragile but people still depend heavily on it to survive.
I mentioned our wetland work there about 10 years ago in Qinghai and a grand wetland meeting in Nyingchi, Tibet. I made two suggestions.
First, biodiversity finance is much more complex than blue finance because the knowledge of species and ecosystems is more detailed. Bankers can never gain a full understanding of the real ecological process. On the other hand, some NGOs working there have their own knowledge, and the financial investment there can be beneficial or complementary to such work. For example, our organization has snow leopard conservation, and the investment activities that benefit communities by going less to the field can reduce human impact on snow leopards. Therefore, I suggest establishing a two-way voluntary expert group. The bankers can consult the expert group when they need help, and the experts in the group can answer questions voluntarily. It sounds weak, but it can provide an opportunity to find mutual support.
Second, the Tibetan Plateau can take mangroves as a reference. Both mangroves and high plateau peatlands have much in common, especially their value for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Cases in mangrove investment, like carbon credits, have the potential to be duplicated there.
Due to the limited time, I did not elaborate. I appreciate Director Mr. Wang Xin’s echo to my points during his closing remarks.