Let’s start the year by taking a deep dive into understanding more about biodiversity credit markets. Hear from David Van Der Zouwe, Director Partnerships and Investment at the Department of Conservation in New Zealand and Cat Rowe, Sustainability Manager at Silver Fern Farms.Together we will explore the work in Aotearoa New Zealand in relation to the development of the biodiversity credit markets, the role of government and the consultation process currently being undertaken. This will then take us into a discussion on the business case for investing in nature including what is driving interest as well as rate of returns. Importantly, when considering this, it is also an opportunity to understand what data and metrics can be used in this process, partnerships and how this can inform indicators demonstrating outcomes.
This special presentation will be followed by our Nature Working Group meeting, which will include the latest industry updates from Australia and New Zealand as well as a discussion of the Nature Working Group plan for 2024.
About the contributors
About the speakers
David Van Der Zouwe
Senior Manager, Strategic Partnerships
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Department of Conservation | Te Papa Atawhai
David van der Zouwe is Director Partnerships and Investment at the Department of Conservation in New Zealand (DOC). DOC faces challenges to achieve its conservation objectives with limited resources and a lack of public awareness and engagement regarding the biodiversity crisis. It is estimated DOC has 10 -15% of the necessary funds to meet its biodiversity conservation goals and one piece of research noted that 58% of New Zealanders thought that the countries' biodiversity is in good shape. DOC's Strategic Partnerships function can address these challenges by: harnessing collective action for nature and attracting resources (through private finance, commercial and philanthropic) to support priority programmes and conservation across New Zealand.
David comes to the role from a legal, commercial and investment background. Immediately prior to joining DOC David had 4 years as head of investment at Kānoa. Kānoa works with other Government organisations and industry, communities, hapū, iwi, Māori organisations and local government to manage and deliver funds tailored to build New Zealand's regional economies. Since 2018, the Government has allocated $4.5 billion towards a range of funds managed and administered by Kānoa. In particular, the team David lead had responsibility for managing circa $850 million of equity, debt and asset investments for Crown Regional Holdings Limited (CRHL). CRHL is the Schedule 4A company that holds Kanoa's assets. Prior to his role at Kanoa, David was a Senior Commercial Leader on strategic government projects, a Client Executive and manager at Spark Digital and a lawyer for the Spark family of companies.
Cat Rowe
Sustainability Manager
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Silver Fern Farms
Cat has been working at the nexus between policy & systems change since before it was cool. She is part of the team working to deliver on Silver Fern Farms' ambition to be a trusted nature positive food producer and leads work focused on nature indexing, investment, market-facing claims and labelling.
Before joining Silver Fern Farms, Cat spent a decade living in the Pacific working on climate and economic issues and from 2012-2014 acted as an advisor to the New Zealand Foreign Minister during New Zealand's successful campaign for the United Nations Security Council.
Let’s start the year by taking a deep dive into understanding more about biodiversity credit markets. Hear from David Van Der Zouwe, Director Partnerships and Investment at the Department of Conservation in New Zealand and Cat Rowe, Sustainability Manager at Silver Fern Farms.Together we will explore the work in Aotearoa New Zealand in relation to the development of the biodiversity credit markets, the role of government and the consultation process currently being undertaken. This will then take us into a discussion on the business case for investing in nature including what is driving interest as well as rate of returns. Importantly, when considering this, it is also an opportunity to understand what data and metrics can be used in this process, partnerships and how this can inform indicators demonstrating outcomes.
This special presentation will be followed by our Nature Working Group meeting, which will include the latest industry updates from Australia and New Zealand as well as a discussion of the Nature Working Group plan for 2024.
