IORA Blue Carbon Hub releases new blue forest finance guide

A new finance guide ‘Blue Forest Finance – Financing the protection and restoration of blue forests and meadows’ was launched by Australia’s Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs the Hon Tim Watts MP this week at the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Council of Ministers meeting. The Australian-funded report was written by the IORA Blue Carbon Hub together with a global team of finance experts. It provides a simple guide to the fundamentals of blue carbon finance, explaining different types of finance instruments and clarifying often confusing jargon.

Background to the report

In February 2020, the IORA Blue Carbon Hub hosted its inaugural ‘think tank’ meeting in Mauritius, focussing on blue carbon finance.

One of the key responses from the delegates was that not only is it difficult to access finance the concepts underpinning the available options are often difficult to understand. A simple guide was needed to overcome this barrier, providing a common understanding and language to generate the finance required to expands efforts to protect and restore blue carbon ecosystems.
In response to this need, the Hub convened a team of experts from around the world to write a plain language guide to current and potential finance instruments. The guide also outlines fundamental principles for using finance, opportunities available to access some types of finance and some recommendations on actions IORA Member States and other states can implement. The guide was written with the intent of helping practitioners develop partnerships with the private sector and to build opportunities for future investment.

You can read more about the inaugural workshop here.