LEON

Biodiversity loss is a critical global threat, with severe implications for ecosystems, economies, and societies. A significant portion of the world’s GDP is heavily reliant on nature and the ecosystem services it provides; this includes  services like flood and storm protection, fertile soils for food, timber and materials, the maintenance of air and water quality, livelihoods and health, all of which contribute to societal resilience. The World Economic Forum’s New Nature Economy report reveals that businesses’ direct dependence on dwindling nature places $44 trillion in global economic value at risk, more than half of total global GDP – a staggering sum.

Meanwhile, global efforts to achieve nature recovery and conservation goals (e.g. as outlined in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework) are hampered in part by a known and substantial shortfall in the financing necessary. ‘Nature finance’ mechanisms (e.g. biodiversity credit markets, bonds, debt-for-nature swaps, green investment portfolios) are emerging as possible routes to fill that shortfall; addressing the vital need to encourage and support the flow of private and public capital to support actions to  address biodiversity and ecosystem sustainability, protection and restoration. However, these mechanisms will need more reliable, comprehensive, affordable, and accessible remote monitoring capabilities if they are to go to the necessary scale.

Earth Observation (EO) science, data and tools are increasingly critical to supporting policy and societal efforts to reverse the decline in global biodiversity and support nature finance mechanisms. In partnership with other space agencies, ESA is central to this effort through provision of high-quality observation data from a range of EO missions. Furthermore, ESA acts as a voice of the wider EO science community in key international fora and among key stakeholders such as IUCN, UNEP, FAO, GEO, and many others.

Supporting ESA to deliver its mandate to provide the best data and scientific evidence to the dialogue on nature finance is a key goal for the LEON project. The multi-partner LEON consortium is led by the University of Oxford, and Assimila Ltd. In particular, the project will:

• Explore and strengthen the role of EO towards leveraging financial mechanisms for  environmental sustainability objectives;
• Facilitate informed decision-making and policy formulation on biodiversity conservation;
• Bridge data and technology gaps to integration, transfer, scalability of EO solutions relevant to biodiversity; and,
• Enhance and facilitate communication across the different communities engaged in nature finance dialogue and action.