Modest Claims Could Unlock Private Finance, Ekos CEO Says at Mongolia COP17
Governments meeting in Mongolia used the UN’s land and desertification summit to push rangelands, or uncultivated pasture land, drought resilience and land restoration higher on the global nature-finance agenda, as officials and project developers looked for ways to attract more private capital for nature recovery.
Sean Weaver, CEO and founder of nature-markets company Ekos, said one option is to add small contributions to everyday purchases — what he calls “the margin of cool” — to create larger pools of funding for conservation.
The 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, or UNCCD COP17, was held in Ulaanbaatar from Aug. 17-28. The meeting focused on desertification, land degradation and drought, but biodiversity was a recurring theme.
“First, let us address land, climate and biodiversity not as separate issues, but as interconnected challenges,” Mongolian Prime Minister Nyam-Osoryn Uchral said at the opening of the summit.
Unlike the biodiversity COP scheduled for Armenia later this year, where implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework will be the focus, the Mongolia summit was held under the UN land convention.
The summit was also the first of three Rio Convention COPs taking place this year, ahead of biodiversity COP17 in Armenia in October and climate COP31 in Turkey in November.
In a World Economic Forum article, the heads of the three UN conventions said the 2026 “triple COP” year creates an opportunity to link policy signals, investment pathways and market incentives across land, biodiversity and climate.
Unlocking private finance
“While there is, in theory, no shortage of private capital, the key to unlocking it is the delivery of a robust financial return on investment from nature positive ventures,” Weaver told OPIS on Aug. 28.
Finance was one of the main themes of the Mongolia talks. Around $355 billion every year between 2025 and 2030 is needed to meet land restoration targets and address degradation, desertification and drought. Current investment is around $77 billion a year, leaving an annual gap of about $278 billion, according to UNCCD data. The private sector currently provides only around 6% of global finance for land restoration and drought resilience.
Weaver said carbon markets and emerging biodiversity markets can both play a role in nature finance, but that not every conservation challenge can be solved through carbon credits.
“There are many biodiversity advocates who want the carbon market to do what it was never designed to do.
“It is like putting clothes in your dishwasher and complaining that it did not wash them very well. This is why the biodiversity markets are so important – a market designed explicitly for nature,” Weaver said.
For project developers, one takeaway from COP17 was the need for more international cooperation, especially in countries where project capacity is still limited.
“Capacity in many developing countries remains low and this means there is a compelling need for North-South partnerships to link foreign capability with local need for nature market solutions,” Weaver said.
New Zealand-based Ekos is supporting a project in western Mongolia to reduce grazing pressure on the steppe and help restore habitat for rare breeds of horse.
Weaver said the company’s BioCredita program is supporting biodiversity credit projects in Mongolia, the U.S., Australia, the Cook Islands, Uganda and New Zealand.
An Ekos biodiversity project in New Zealand is featured in the Biodiversity Market Report.
In a social media video from Mongolia, Weaver also discussed using finance to incentivize herders to reduce goat numbers and ease grazing pressure on the steppe. If herders keep fewer animals, they may earn less money, even while delivering an ecosystem service by reducing pressure on the land. Additional revenue from biodiversity credits could help reduce the financial risk.
Weaver said demand could be unlocked through modest contribution claims, particularly when biodiversity credits are not used as offsets.
“This is when the claim is modest and only asserts that a buyer is making a contribution to nature conservation rather than something grandiose like ‘our company has zero negative impact on the planet,'” he said. “It is these modest contribution claims that I believe hold the key to unlocking a tide of deal flow at this early stage of market development.”
That could include small voluntary surcharges on goods or services, such as a small mark-up on cashmere products linked to steppe restoration. Weaver said a tiny increase in unit price, such as 1% or less, could be barely noticeable to most buyers but significant in aggregate.
The private-finance theme was also reflected in the Business4Land Forum, held on Aug. 24. Business4Land is UNCCD’s main tool for private-sector engagement in sustainable land and water management. Its work includes policy support, public-private partnerships and finance tools such as the Drought Resilience Investment Facility, a blended-finance mechanism backing sustainable farming, water access and nature-based solutions.
“For me the key is to stop arm-waving about what might happen in a perfect future and get on with wholesome transactions and modest claims without delay and build this market together,” Weaver said.
Rangelands at the core of discussion
Rangelands became one of the clearest biodiversity links at the Mongolia summit. They cover more than half of the Earth’s land surface, support around 2 billion people and provide nearly 70% of global livestock feed. They also hold around one-third of the world’s key biodiversity areas and generate benefits worth an estimated $21 trillion-$47 trillion a year, according to a report launched during COP17.
But up to half of the world’s rangelands are degraded or at risk, threatening food systems, water security, biodiversity, and livelihoods, UNCCD said. The report argued that rangelands remain largely overlooked by investors and policymakers, even though restoring them can return $4-$6 for every dollar invested, or as much as $36 for every dollar when wider public benefits such as water supply are included.
The report also warned against poorly designed “green” fixes, such as planting trees on natural grassland or ploughing drylands for crops, which can damage ecosystems adapted to open grazing.
Mongolian National Biodiversity Plan
Mongolia has also used COP17 to present its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan for 2026-2030. The strategy is aligned with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and focuses on ecosystem resilience, protected areas, community-based conservation and sustainable livelihoods.
“For Mongolia, land is inseparable from our people, our livelihoods and our future,” Battsetseg Batmunkh, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Mongolia and UNCCD COP17 President, said at the opening of the summit.
“As a country where pastoralism remains central to our society and where land degradation, drought and dzud are already placing growing pressure on communities, we know that the health of our land has direct consequences for people’s lives.”
The United Nations refers to dzud as severe winter weather conditions can lead to reduced accessibility or availability of forage or pasture land, increasing livestock mortality rates.
Weaver said biodiversity markets are likely to feature strongly at the biodiversity COP in Armenia.
Reporting by Nia Simeonova, nia.simeonova@dowjones.com; Editing by Rob Sheridan, rob.sheridan@dowjones.com