President Ali Calls for Practical Financing to Boost Biodiversity Conservation

According to the Guyana Times, President Dr Irfaan Ali addressed over 300 international delegates at the second annual conference of the Global Biodiversity Alliance (GBA) in Georgetown, calling for practical solutions and financing directed toward biodiversity conservation. The conference, held under the theme “Investing in Nature: From Global Commitments to Practical Action,” gathered leading global researchers, policymakers, financial institutions, and other key stakeholders with the objective of addressing the financing gap for nature.

President Ali, who pioneered the GBA, stated that the Alliance was established in July 2025 with 17 founding members, and its membership has since expanded to approximately 147. He charged the assembled global leaders with developing actionable solutions to mobilize investment for the protection of biodiversity, emphasizing that the Alliance's practicality lies in securing project-ready financing.

He asserted that while philanthropy is valuable, it cannot form the sole foundation for viewing biodiversity, which he described as carrying immense value for research, medicine, and the survival of the planet. The Guyanese Leader stated that the GBA's role is to create an actionable framework by identifying development gaps associated with biodiversity, thereby contributing to solving global issues.

Guyana possesses over 85 per cent of its landmass covered by forests, which constitutes one of the world's major reservoirs of biodiversity and provides significant environmental services to humanity. Furthermore, Guyana is advancing plans to conserve more than 1 million hectares of pristine, biodiversity-rich forests.

President Ali also announced that the design for the permanent headquarters of the GBA Secretariat in Guyana has been finalized. This facility, developed in partnership with the Qatar Foundation and the King’s Foundation, will serve as a hub for the secretariat, learning, research, and advancing the alliance's initiatives, while collaborating with the Iwokrama International Centre to enhance scientific research and capacity-building in biodiversity-rich nations.

Dr Ali contended that biodiversity-rich developing countries, including Guyana, must receive recognition for their conservation efforts. He noted that closing the financing gap requires moving beyond conventional biodiversity finance methods to establish new mechanisms that can mobilize private investment and ensure that nations protecting ecosystems receive a fair share of the economic value generated by those ecosystems. He stated that the GBA is crucial in ensuring biodiversity conservation becomes central to economic planning and development.

He stressed that while the expertise present has contributed significantly to global understanding, the focus must now shift to transforming that information into an actionable framework. President Ali asserted that without changing the economics of conservation, achieving the necessary scale of global change would be difficult. He highlighted finance as the core element of the summit, aiming to advance practical ways to mobilize investment, create economic opportunities for communities protecting biodiversity, and integrate conservation into economic development.

President Ali emphasized that the GBA was not established merely to be another forum for discussing nature's importance, but rather to provide practical mechanisms that convert commitment into investment, investment into opportunity, and opportunity into lasting protection for nature. Against this backdrop, he proposed three priorities to guide the Alliance's work over the subsequent 12 months: gathering the world's best knowledge, science, and innovation to create new solutions; collaborating to unlock finance and investment for biodiversity; and demonstrating the viability of a new biodiversity economy in practice.

Regarding the private sector, the Guyanese Leader underscored the importance of these sectors in biodiversity-rich countries participating in the solution, noting that this is already occurring in Guyana. He commended Guyana’s business leaders and their international partners for initiating discussions to explore new approaches to biodiversity finance and suggested that the private sector from all alliance countries could collaborate to create an investment vehicle for biodiversity resorts across various destinations, marketing them under a unified brand with shared values, regulations, and a common platform, presenting a significant opportunity for communities and nations.