The Confederation of European Forest Owners (CEPF), represented by Secretary General Fanny-Pomme Langue, welcomed this initiative which was an important opportunity to convey some key messages from European forest owners to European Commission.
Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for the Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, invited together environmental, business, financial and primary producer stakeholders to discuss the development of nature credits in a high-level roundtable. Nature credits as a tool aims to boost private sector’s potential to participate in biodiversity conservation and restoration. Feeding into the Commission’s work on the development of the nature credits system, the roundtable discussions aimed to identify drivers for demand and explore the market development.
The initiative stems from the European Commission’s broader ambition to unlock new sources of financing for nature restoration. As public funding alone will not suffice to meet the scale of investment needed, the Commission is exploring innovative mechanisms, such as nature credits, for channelling private capital into biodiversity. The roundtable was convened to discuss what a credible and functional nature credit system could look like.
With the following three key messages, CEPF wished to ensure the systems being developed should be grounded in practicality and experience from the ground:
1) Take sufficient time to develop a good clear basis that enables an implementable and attractive framework.
2) A market-based approach can work if nature credits framework would not be too narrow or complex and remain voluntary. Nature credits must be encompassed within forests multifunctionality. They should be seen as a possible added value, not a single tool to manage forests.
3) Clarify the relations between nature credits and the many other EU forest-related developments. Among others, closer to nature forestry practices should not be the only approach through which forest management is addressed in nature credits. There are many forest management practices that take care of biodiversity and these must be well considered.
CEPF looks forward to further constructive engagement with the Commission on the topic of nature credits
