Fundraising to protect key natural sites falls shortly before the UN Biodiversity Summit

Efforts to raise hundreds of billions of dollars to preserve the world’s oceans, forests, rivers, lakes and other parts of the natural world have fallen short ahead of a key UN summit on biodiversity.

The yawning gap between nations’ stated ambition to protect biodiversity and what money is raised is a central issue in Yerevan, Armenia, when the Biodiversity Conference, known as COP17, begins on Monday. The nearly two-week event, scheduled to end on October 30, is a chance for nearly 200 countries that are part of the treaty to take stock of their progress on 23 global goals after agreeing to a historic deal made in Montreal in 2022. The United States is not a party to the treaty.

Countries in Montreal committed to protect 30% of the land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030, a goal known as 30×30.

READ MORE: UN biodiversity talks end with nations pledging $200 billion a year to protect nature

They also pledged to raise $200 billion a year by 2030 for biodiversity and to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature. There were also commitments to increase 20 billion dollars annually by 2025 money that went to poor countries. This figure would increase to 30 billion dollars every year until 2030.

“We are not moving fast enough,” convention executive secretary Astrid Schomaker told The Associated Press, before a UN progress report released Thursday showed less than half of the parties’ biodiversity goals are on track and that current commitments protect only 26% of land and only 12% of seas by 2030.

Data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development shows that countries will collect between $75 billion and $92 billion each year from 2023 to 2025 – less than half of the 2030 target. Commitments to cut $500 billion in harmful subsidies – government support and funding for sectors such as fisheries and agriculture – have gained little traction, with few countries identifying which subsidies they would cut.

The countries were on track to provide the 20 billion dollars for poor countries by 2025. The latest data showed that 19 billion dollars were collected in 2024. But a decline in foreign aid raises the question of whether the upward trend will continue.

“Do we actually have enough money to finance the commitments that the countries have made? And how can we get more finance to flow into the biodiversity positive results?” Schomaker said. “That is the crucial question for the COP.”

Biodiversity has taken a hit worldwide

The campaign to protect biodiversity, which first gathered global attention with the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, has often looked like a losing battle.

In a bid to grow their economies and support increasing populations, countries have turned forests into farms, overfished their waters and reduced the habitats of many plants and animals through uncontrolled development. At the same time, climate change has created the conditions for widespread wildfires and prolonged droughts that have decimated ecosystems.

As a result, three-quarters of the world’s land has been “heavily modified” by humans and a million of the world’s plants and animals are threatened with extinction, according to a 2019 UN report. Wildlife populations have also declined, according to WWF’s 2026 Living Planet Report released this month. They decreased by an average of 73% between 1970 and 2022.

“We are losing everything that is important to us as humans on this planet,” Schomaker said.

Meanwhile, there are some signs that countries are protecting more biodiversity. The countries announced over 5,000 initiatives linked to the treaty.

A report by the Campaign for Nature, a global initiative that spearheaded the 30×30 effort, found that countries in Latin America have already committed to protecting 29% of their land, while those in Oceania have pledged to preserve 41% of their seas. Last year, the Philippines created a marine protected area where catching rays and sharks is prohibited, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society. In 2023, Cambodia set aside nearly 100,000 hectares (40,000 acres) of flooded grassland habitat for protection, while Argentina created a national park in 2024.

At the conference on Friday, a coalition of 17 nations was launched to accelerate the recovery of species. It would also support one of the convention’s goals, which calls for stopping the extinction of threatened species and reducing the risk of extinction. Nine private organizations, including the Bezos Earth Fund, also announced plans to spend $500 million over the next five years to prevent extinction and recover the world’s most endangered species.

“We have a shared responsibility to ensure that threatened species have a future,” said Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Fabio Alberto Arjona Hincapié, whose country is a coalition president.

Brian O’Donnell, director of the Campaign for Nature, said where and what we need to protect is clear, as well as the methods to do so.

“What is needed now is a surge of political ambition and determination,” O’Donnell said.

O’Donnell said an international agreement reached last year to protect marine diversity on the high seas – the High Seas Treaty – would help, but more was needed.

Aid to developing countries and subsidies will be central issues

Many expected conference participants hope countries, the private sector and philanthropies will use the meeting next week to announce major biodiversity funding initiatives.

Susan Lieberman, the vice president for international policy for WCS, said protecting important biodiversity requires money and expertise.

“You can’t just say, OK, there’s a line on the map. You have to do the science,” she said. “You have to know if it’s in the right place. If you want to start a park, you have better management of the park, governance, infrastructure.”

This is especially true in poor countries, according to Dorothy Maseke, head of the African Natural Capital Alliance Secretariat, an African-led initiative to integrate nature into financial decision-making. Many developing countries with significant biodiversity are unable to protect and conserve it because governments are also trying to pay to finance healthcare, education, infrastructure and public services.

Daniel Mukubi, the biodiversity negotiator for the Congo, agrees that it is “not possible to establish protected and conserved areas” without sufficient financial assistance. He lamented that foreign development aid, including from the United States, has decreased significantly. That has led to “weakened law enforcement and eco-guards patrolling critical habitat,” including at some of the country’s UNESCO World Heritage sites.

“If these precious ecosystems collapse because international funding does not secure them, the resulting economic damages will cost the global market tens of trillions of dollars,” Mukubi said. “So, investing in the Congo Basin is not an expense. It is the most expensive insurance policy the West can buy.”

Another issue that is expected to be big is how governments get to cut an estimated $7.3 trillion in subsidies and redirect that money to nature. That’s about 30 times more than what was invested in nature-based solutions in 2023, according to the Campaign for Nature.

“Every year, trillions of dollars are spent in subsidies that harm nature, even though the funding to protect it is far less than necessary,” said Patricia Zurita, executive director of Conservation International, in a statement. “We cannot reverse biodiversity loss while continuing to fund activities that drive deforestation, overfishing, pollution and more.”

Associated Press reporter Sibi Arasu in Bengaluru, India, contributed to this report.