Designing ecologically effective and economically efficient conservation compensation funds: lessons from theory and practice

The global community has committed to a substantial increase in the scale of investment in nature via Target 19 of the Kunming-Montreal agreement. An important but understudied mechanism for attracting private investment into biodiversity outcomes is conservation compensation funds – funds that aggregate payments to compensate for negative impacts on biodiversity to contribute to strategic objectives. We described the principles of effective compensation funds based on economic and ecological theory, and assembled by far the largest database of operational compensation funds to date (32 funds across 17 countries) through a mixed methods review. We explored the variety of practice in real-world implementation, and how empirical practice compares to theory, highlighting key gaps. In doing so, we provided a guide to the design of ecologically effective compensation funds, a hitherto understudied but potentially substantial source of investment for biodiversity outcomes.