Canada Launches Expert Taskforce to Value Nature and Mobilise Conservation Financing

The Canadian government has established the Expert Taskforce on Natural Capital Accounting and Nature Financing, bringing together 15 experts spanning nature conservation, Indigenous-led conservation, finance, economics, business and public policy to advise on how to better measure, value and account for nature in decision-making. The taskforce builds on Prime Minister Mark Carney's previously announced $3.8 billion investment to protect and restore nature across Canada under A Force of Nature: Canada's Strategy to Protect Nature. Globally, the annual funding gap to meet biodiversity commitments has grown to more than US$1 trillion, with current funding of approximately US$313 billion falling well short, and around 80 percent of that existing funding coming from public sources alone.

 

Why Measuring Nature's Value Is a Precondition for Mobilising Investment

 

Natural capital accounting is the methodology at the centre of the taskforce's mandate: a systematic approach to quantifying the economic value nature provides, from carbon storage and flood mitigation to water filtration, so that these benefits can be incorporated into public and private financial decision-making alongside more conventional economic metrics. Without a standardised way to measure and value nature's contributions, investors, companies and governments have historically struggled to price conservation as an economically rational investment rather than a purely philanthropic or regulatory cost, which has been a persistent structural barrier limiting private capital flowing into nature protection at the scale conservation actually requires.

That measurement problem is precisely why the release cites specific figures for Canada's own ecosystems: wetlands are estimated to provide $225 billion annually in ecosystem services related to water quality and climate, while boreal forests contribute an estimated $703 billion annually through carbon storage, flood mitigation and pest control. Making these values visible and quantifiable in economic terms is the necessary first step toward building financial instruments and investment cases around nature protection, since capital markets generally cannot price or invest in benefits that remain unmeasured or treated as a free public good with no attached economic value.

 

 

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Why the 80% Public Funding Reliance Signals an Unsustainable Structure

 

The statistic that roughly 80 percent of existing global biodiversity funding comes from public sources points directly to the structural problem the taskforce is meant to address. Public budgets face competing demands across healthcare, infrastructure, defence and other priorities, meaning conservation funding reliant this heavily on government spending is inherently vulnerable to budget cycles, changing political priorities and fiscal constraints, a vulnerability that becomes more consequential as the overall biodiversity funding gap continues widening rather than closing.

Minister Julie Dabrusin's framing, that the taskforce will help mobilise further capital toward a balanced and transparent net-zero economy, positions private capital mobilisation as essential precisely because public funding alone has proven insufficient to close a trillion-dollar global gap, echoing similar rationale behind blended finance structures and catalytic capital models covered elsewhere in recent climate finance coverage, where public or concessional capital is used specifically to de-risk and attract larger volumes of private investment that would not otherwise flow into conservation or climate-related sectors.

 

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What the Taskforce Composition Reveals About the Scope of Expertise Required

 

The taskforce's 15 members span a notably wide range of professional backgrounds: academic economists and law professors, Indigenous conservation leadership through the Indigenous Leadership Initiative's executive director, institutional finance executives including La Caisse's head of sustainability, accounting standards expertise through a member of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board, fisheries economics research, climate risk consulting, and foundation and nature investment leadership. That breadth signals the government's recognition that natural capital accounting and nature financing genuinely require multidisciplinary expertise spanning technical measurement methodology, financial structuring, Indigenous governance and rights, and public accounting standards simultaneously, rather than being solvable through economic or scientific expertise alone.

The explicit inclusion of Indigenous-led conservation expertise and planned consultations with Indigenous partners reflects a recognition that natural capital accounting and financing mechanisms affecting land and resources cannot be developed credibly without direct engagement with Indigenous communities, whose traditional territories and stewardship practices are often central to the ecosystems being valued and protected.

 

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What Comes Next

 

The taskforce will develop recommendations over the coming months aimed at mobilising private investment for nature-positive outcomes while advancing natural capital accounting practices, alongside conducting consultations and engagement processes with Indigenous partners and other stakeholders. Whether the taskforce's recommendations translate into concrete government policy and financial mechanisms capable of meaningfully shifting Canada's reliance away from public-dominated conservation funding, and whether the natural capital accounting frameworks it develops prove robust enough to genuinely attract private capital at scale, will determine how significant this initiative proves in addressing both Canada's own nature financing needs and the broader global biodiversity funding gap the announcement situates it within.

 

Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada