Who gains from saving nature
Ledger 1 : 33 — For each dollar financing nature-based solutions in 2023, about $33 financed activities harmful to nature. (UNEP)
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Cases
Summary of the selection
3
cases
3 countries · 3 instruments
2 / 3
without independent ecological evaluation
3 with no court case · 3 with key earnings undisclosed
0
actors in more than one selected case
—
Kariba REDD+ project (Zimbabwe)Galápagos debt-for-nature swapYangtze ten-year fishing ban
InstrumentCarbon creditsDebt-for-nature swapFishing ban
Country · periodZimbabwe · 2011–2025Ecuador · 2023–2041China · 2020–2030
Headline figure1: 8+
Documented on the ground vs kept by the developer and the marketer
$37m / $3.8m
First-year investor interest vs grants assigned by end-2025
70: 30
Fish loss: habitat vs fishing
Shown“Nearly 785,000 hectares” protected — South Pole factsheet (April 2019)
3,000,000 tCO2e mitigated on average annually, 2011–2016 — South Pole factsheet (April 2019)
85,000 people benefiting — South Pole factsheet (April 2019)
“A giant biodiversity corridor” — South Pole factsheet (April 2019)		The world's largest debt-for-nature swap
$1.1 billion saved for Ecuador
More than $450 million for the Galápagos
A win for nature and people		A ten-year rest for the river
231,000 fishers compensated and retrained
Porpoise numbers rising
Fish biomass up
RecordedAssumed deforestation 3.2% a year; control area 1.5% in 2011–2021, now 0.2%. Follow the Money gave the overestimate as about 27 million tonnes and as a factor of about 14.
Contractual split as stated publicly: South Pole 25%; Carbon Green Investments 30% of the remaining 75%; the rest divided into local authorities 40%, community activities 30%, project management 20% and a survival fund 10%.
Follow the Money, 26 July 2023: 23 receipts (2019–2022) total €192,000; spending listed in the five verification reports totals about €200,000; in 2019–2021, $15,000 went to 46 schools and $9,000 to 17 clinics, while sales in that period exceeded €30 million.
Kariba was about 10% of South Pole's 2022 revenue of €232 million; sales in 2022 alone were close to half of all-time turnover.
South Pole acknowledged to Follow the Money that it bought credits for under €0.50 and resold them for over €20; Follow the Money put the margin, on top of South Pole's 25% commission, at at least €18 million.
Verra, 23 September 2025: 15,220,520 of 26,822,953 issued credits excess; 10,321,531 retired and still valid; 4,898,989 still active; 10,083,263 verified-but-unissued credits permanently removed; 5,049,473 buffer credits cancelled; CGI asked to cancel 15.2 million credits.
Verra board member Anshari Rahman also sat on South Pole's board. No wrongdoing is alleged in the record; the overlap of people between the standard-setter and a developer is noted.
Verra's board chair, Marc Stuart, is a co-founder of the carbon project developer EcoSecurities.
Verra's revenue comes from a per-credit fee: $0.20–0.23 per credit, $0.23 since 2025.
No refund record exists for buyers of the excess credits; those already retired remain valid for the buyers.		Grants assigned by end-2025: about $3.8m
The protected reserve existed before the swap
Effective borrowing cost rises from 5.6% to 7.4% with insurance, guarantee and fees
Fund registered in Delaware; government seats are a minority		About 70% of fish loss attributed to habitat, about 30% to fishing
The dams keep running; dam operator profit up about 3× from 2015 to 2025
The baiji was gone 14 years before the ban
One reported fisher: from 50–80,000 yuan a year to about 24,000 as a patrol warden
Reached nature≤ €7.5m
Sum of documented payments to the ground. No figure for ranger, patrol or monitoring spending has been published.
≈ $3.8m
Assigned by end-2025. The $323m is a commitment.
≈ ¥27bn
Compensation to fishers; no habitat-restoration budget is attached to the ban.
Gained elsewhereSouth Pole: share of revenue, incl. at least €18m trading margin: ≥ €43m*
Carbon Green Investments: own contractual share: €17m*		Investor interest, first year: $37m*
Insurance, guarantee and fee spread, first year: $11m*
Arranger fee (Credit Suisse/UBS): —		China Yangtze Power net profit, 2025: ¥34.5bn
Hubei aquaculture output value, 2022: ¥157.7bn
RatioFor every €1 documented as reaching the ground, at least €8 went to the developer and the marketer.*Not comparableNot comparable
Nature's outcomesExcess credits: 56.7%
Assumed vs observed deforestation: 3.2% vs 1.5%
Retired excess credits still valid: 10.3m
Independent ecological evaluation: None		Grants assigned: $3.8m
New protected area from the swap: None
Independent ecological evaluation: None		Finless porpoise (official count): 1,012 → 1,426
Main-stem fish biomass: +209%
Chinese sturgeon: No natural spawning
Evidence statusNo court case Under standard-setter review Key earnings undisclosed No independent ecological evaluationNo court case No independent ecological evaluation Key earnings undisclosedNo court case Key earnings undisclosed
Did the harm stop?Sales stopped on 9 November 2022, eleven years after the project began. Credits already retired by buyers remain valid.No specific harm was named for the swap to stop. The reserve it funds was declared a year earlier.Fishing stopped in 2020–21. Habitat loss, named as the larger cause, was not part of the ban.
Who paid?Local governments and communities in the project area, whose documented share was a small fraction of revenue; buyers hold credits that Verra later found excess.Ecuador pays the coupon, premiums and fees until 2041. Artisanal fishers report concern over access to fishing grounds.Fishers, many moving to lower incomes; the baiji, before any ban existed.
Sources14 linked5 linked7 linked

* Estimate built from cited figures. Amounts are in each case's own currency and window; they are not added across cases.

Terms used on this page

Carbon and conservation finance

Carbon credit
A certificate representing one tonne of carbon dioxide (or equivalent) that a project says it reduced, avoided or removed. Buyers use credits to balance their own emissions in climate claims.
Debt-for-nature swap
A deal in which a government's debt is bought back or refinanced at a discount, and part of the savings is committed to conservation.
Excess credits
Credits issued beyond the amount that a later review found to be justified.
Retired credit
A credit that has been used to make a climate claim and is permanently removed from circulation in the registry.
Standard-setter and registry
An organisation that writes the rules for carbon credits, approves projects, and records when credits are issued and retired. Such bodies typically charge fees per credit.

Science and environment

Baiji
The Yangtze river dolphin, a freshwater dolphin found only in the Yangtze.
Biomass, root-to-shoot ratio, carbon fraction
Biomass is the dry weight of living plants per hectare. The root-to-shoot ratio adds the weight of roots. The carbon fraction is the share of that weight that is carbon, about 47% in tropical forests.
Finless porpoise
The Yangtze finless porpoise, a small toothed whale living in the river and its lakes.
Hectare (ha)
A unit of area equal to 10,000 square metres, about 2.5 acres. 100 hectares make one square kilometre.

Bonds and banking

Arranger
The bank that structures and sells a bond or loan deal, usually for a fee.
Coupon
The interest rate a bond pays its investors each year.
Delaware, Guernsey, Cayman Islands
Jurisdictions widely used to register companies, funds and accounts for legal, confidentiality and tax reasons.
Guarantee
A commitment by a third party, often a development bank, to pay if the borrower does not.

Insurance

Premium
The price paid for an insurance policy.