“An important change in the financing model of conservation”: this was how Alessandro Noceti described the latest investment operation carried out by Valeur Group, an independent business specialized in asset management and trading services. As recently announced, the Group has subscribed to the Wildlife Conservation Bond issued by the World Bank – the so-called “Rhino Impact Bond” – that supports black rhinos and local communities in the Addo Elephant National Park and in the Great Fish River Nature Reserve in South Africa.
“We are proud of the decision to invest in this innovative and unique financial instrument”, said Alessandro Noceti, Director of Valeur Capital Ltd and Valeur Securities SA: “By unleashing capital from the private sector”, he added, this “represents an important change in the financing model of conservation and allows to achieve concrete and measurable results while also offering an attractive return potential”.
The Wildlife Conservation Bond is the first-of-its-kind fixed income instrument developed for the conservation of a particular endangered species. It consists of a five-year loan of 150 million dollars and employs an outcome payment model: it pays returns to its investors in relation to the growth rates of black rhinos in two South African reserves, Addo Elephant National Park and the Great Fish River Nature Reserve.
“The decision to invest in Rhino Impact Bonds strengthens our commitment to pursuing humanitarian and animals’ welfare objectives, which are the core goals of our non-profit organization Valeur Foundation”, Valeur Group‘s CEO Lorenzo Vangelisti emphasized: in this perspective, “the preservation of rhinos can contribute to the defense of biodiversity and at the same time can promote employment in local communities through the creation of jobs needed to carry out this important conservation project”.
As Alessandro Noceti pointed out in conclusion, this is exactly the aim of the Rhino Impact Bond: working to achieve the double result of defending an endangered species – the population of black rhinos has indeed decreased from 65’000 in the 1970s to the current 2’600 – and protecting the entire ecosystem as well as local communities.
Further information can be found here:
https://globalhappenings.com/economy/180085.html
