The King shook hands with a “gorilla” and was made a “care-holder” of an area of pristine Pacific ocean as he attended an event on driving finance into nature protection.
Ministers, indigenous leaders and businesses and investors representing £12.2 trillion in finance gathered at the conference convened by the UK Government at Lancaster House in London to discuss how to drive private money into restoring and conserving nature and natural services.
Charles has long been an advocate for investing in nature, with leading environmentalist and head of Natural England Tony Juniper describing him as “being right about these issues 20 years” before anyone else.
At a reception after the meeting the King watched a performance by public art and climate initiative The Herds featuring life-sized puppets of African animals including a zebra, lioness and a gorilla, which Charles shook hands with.
He also discussed the urgency of saving the forests with Brazilian environment and climate minister Marina Silva, who showed him a picture of a tree he had planted 35 years ago, which is now a towering specimen, as he remarked “I have green fingers”.
Charles was presented with gifts by Mona Ainu’u, minister of natural resources of the Pacific island of Niue, including honey and a certificate showing he had been made a “care-holder” of one square kilometre of the island’s Moana Mahu marine protected area, as a gift from the country.
The scheme is part of an innovative financing mechanism called “ocean conservation commitments” in which donors can sponsor the conservation of one square kilometre of the reserve, a vast area half the size of the UK and home to coral reefs, undersea mountains, sharks, whales, dolphins and rays.
The payments of around £110 aim to protect each piece of the marine protected area for a period of 20 years, with the proceeds used to fund conservation, resilience and sustainable development.
Mr Juniper said the King had been making the case for “natural capital” – valuing and investing in the world’s natural resources such as forests, fish and water to benefit humans – for decades, adding “I think he might even have invented the idea quite a long time ago”.
He said: “He has a particular credibility as a leader in this subject, and hopefully him being here today will really send a signal to everybody that this is a serious proposition, this idea that we need to invest in nature to be able to get returns.”
Mr Juniper added: “He’s always been right about these issues, 20 years before everyone really understood it was a serious thing that we were dealing with, and so him being here today, hopefully, sends a signal that there’s something real going on here that people need to attend to.”
Mr Juniper warned there was a “huge job” ahead in recovering nature globally but also in England and it would require private finance.
“With England being one of the most nature depleted countries on Earth, you know, the job is particularly acute and urgent,” he said.
“We have some positive government policy that’s come through during recent years, but we’re going to need to augment that with private investment to be able to get to where we need to go.”
Mr Juniper pointed to nascent markets in “biodiversity net gain”, where developers have to pay to boost nature when carrying out housing or other projects.
And he said there was a need to drive private finance into areas such as fresh water and flood water, where utilities or insurance companies fund nature restoration, or nature-based solutions to reduce the cost of cleaning up water or paying for flood damage.
Speaking at the event, Environment Secretary Steve Reed said: “Nature underpins everything. Without it there is no economy, no food, no health and ultimately no society.
“With this Government, Britain stands ready to lead on climate and nature.
“The UK is playing our part to protect nature at home and abroad. We will work with other nations around the world who commit to do the same.”
The event was attended by environment ministers and representatives of businesses, banks and investors such as GSK, Aviva, Lloyds, BlackRock and State Street, as well as conservation and ecology experts and indigenous and community representatives.
Those taking part in roundtable discussions described how regenerative agriculture and agroforestry was already investable, but the financial sector needed to understand the importance of the oceans, the need for integrity and regulation of markets and working with indigenous people.
Speaking after the event, UK Government Special Representative for Nature Ruth Davis said it was “full of investors and businesses for whom the penny has dropped that if they don’t look after nature, natural capital, soils, water, biodiversity, they are literally going to lose the basis upon which their existing businesses are founded”.
She said the meeting would help scale up action to drive investment in natural capital.
