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Ecuador seeks biodiversity finance while expanding oil and mining
CNBC reports Ecuador is pursuing green bonds, debt-for-nature swaps and biodiversity credits even as officials plan more oil exploration and mineral development.
- New headline Was: “Ecuador wants to monetize its biodiversity — while still drilling for oil”
- Our desk filed its story
Ecuador is trying to raise more money for conservation through green bonds, debt-for-nature swaps and biodiversity credits while still extracting oil and developing minerals, CNBC reported Friday1.
Environment and Energy Minister Juan Carlos Blum told CNBC the government hopes to issue its first sovereign green bonds in 2027 to fund protection of coastal and mountain regions, and that it is seeking advice from the European Union, which set green-bond standards in 20241.
Ecuador will host the U.N. biodiversity conference known as COP18 in 2028, the report said1.
The country already uses green-finance tools. In March, IDB Invest and Banco Bolivariano issued a $120 million biodiversity bond, CNBC said, and two debt-for-nature swaps in 2023 and 2024 together freed about $1.1 billion for conservation in the Amazon and Galapagos Islands1.
Blum said officials are trying to balance biodiversity with use of renewable and nonrenewable resources1. About 80% of Ecuador’s energy came from oil and oil products in 2024, according to International Energy Agency figures cited by CNBC, while about two-thirds of electricity came from hydropower1.
CNBC said the government also plans to capitalize on critical minerals and continue oil extraction in parts of the Amazon, which has drawn protests from Indigenous and environmental groups1. Blum told the outlet illegal mining is a larger environmental problem than legal mining1.
At a Bio Summit in Quito from Nov. 4 to Nov. 6, event president Marcelo Salame said he is working to bring biodiversity credits to Ecuador for the first time, starting with a 260-hectare (640-acre) area of the Prosperina forest owned by ESPOL University in Guayaquil1.
Martin Vaquié of Bloomlabs told CNBC that biodiversity credits fund verified nature outcomes and, unlike carbon credits, have not been used to offset damage1. Conservationist Jerry Toth of Third Millennium Alliance said carbon markets can reduce a forest to a single carbon metric and that biodiversity credits might capture more of an ecosystem1.
Toth’s group also works with cacao farmers in Manabí province; he told CNBC To’ak pays about $1.20 a pound, roughly double the market price, and that Ecuador is still figuring out how to capture ecological value for people and ecosystems1.
