In this episode of the Nature Recovery Podcast, David Goodman speaks with Dr. Alice Stuart, a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment. Alice’s research maps and analyses public, private, and philanthropic finance flows into conservation across the UK.

They explore:

Why most conservation funding still comes from public sources
The role of philanthropy and corporate funding
Why private investors are hesitant to fund nature
How Biodiversity Net Gain and habitat banking work
The risks of reducing biodiversity to a metric
Goodhart’s Law and “gaming” environmental targets
Why democratising nature finance requires local empowerment
Alice argues that the key issue isn’t how much money flows into nature but whether it goes to the right places, empowers the right people, and delivers meaningful ecological outcomes.

Find out more about Alice’s work and view their outputs on mapping financial flows here:

The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners.

The views, opinions and positions expressed within this podcast are those of the speakers alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, or its researchers.

The work of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is made possible thanks to the support of the Leverhulme Trust.