It’s time to rethink our incentive systems so they work for Nature and People.
Join David Meyers and Kim Bonine as they talk with some of the world’s most innovative thinkers and driven actors to discuss how to transform economic incentive systems so they work for nature and people.
4Nature Podcast is produced by
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4Nature Co-Hosts
David Meyers
Executive Director, Conservation Finance Alliance
David is an environmental finance expert and entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience in the field. He is currently the Executive Director of the Conservation Finance Alliance. From 2012-2018, David was a Senior Technical Advisor for the BIOFIN/UNDP project. David spent well over a decade in Madagascar and helped the country plan and execute a doubling of the area under conservation. He holds a PhD in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy from Duke University, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.
Kim Bonine
Training Director, Conservation Strategy Fund
Kim leads CSF’s Numbers for Nature Training Institute and Economics for Environmental Leadership training program, with activities in over 40 countries and five continents. Over the past 20 years, she has led the design and implementation of environmental economics courses and analysis projects in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and North and South America on themes such as wildlife conservation, infrastructure development, fisheries management, tourism economics, and sustainable livelihoods. Kim holds a MS in Earth Systems and a BA in Human Biology, both from Stanford University.
Welcome to 4Nature Podcast
Meet your hosts, David Meyers and Kim Bonine, as they share their inspiration for creating the 4Nature podcast series.
David Meyers, Executive Director of Conservation Finance Alliance, and Kim Bonine, Training Director at Conservation Strategy Fund, chat about what nature means to them and discuss the major themes of their new 4Nature podcast.
"[Humans] have evolved to live in nature and function in nature and losing that nature has had a profound psychological impact on us as individuals and communities." - David Meyers
Part of the problem might not be that we don't care. Part of the problem is somewhat how we count things and measure things and what we include when we're making decisions, and considering trade-offs, and it's about really embracing a new way of thinking about well-being and thinking about our lives and making sure that Nature is included. Imperfectly, but included....it's essential to how we live as people" - Kim Bonine
Episode 1: Confronting COVID-19 and the Climate Crisis
David Johnson, University of Wisconsin-Madison
David and Kim talk to David Johnson, Senior Lecturer in the Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about the management of public goods in the global economy and how we find a balance between individual needs and group success when it comes to nature and the climate crisis.
"A reason to be hopeful: we came together to stop a global pandemic..what's stopping us from having the same global response to climate change? ... it may be a moment to be seized." - David Johnson
Episode 2: Getting the Financial Incentives Right
Nik Sekhran, Chief Conservation Officer at WWF-US
David and Nik Sekhran, Chief Conservation Officer at WWF, speak about what's working in nature finance right now, the importance of including infrastructure into ecosystem services conversations, and the inherent risk mitigation in financing nature.
"Nature-based risks are enormous, we focus predominantly on climate change risks - and they're gargantuan - but nature-based risks are equally so and they can impact economies even faster than climate risks and they can affect all sectors. We need to look at carbon and the carbonization of the world economy but we can't ignore nature in that process or we will be left with a huge bill from nature." - Nik Sekhran
Episode 3: The Interconnectedness of Nature
Jen Morris, CEO of The Nature Conservancy
In a conversation recorded before COP26 in Glasgow 2021, David and Jen Morris of TNC discuss the interconnectedness of nature in public health, economics, and wellbeing, and aligning incentives to bring nature to the forefront of climate change conversations.
"Until we can make that systemic change from it being a environment over here and economic development over here and never the two shall meet when it comes to policies and incentives, we're never going to mainstream nature into the economic frame it needs to be for us to see real change" - Jen Morris
Episode 4: Africa's Leadership in Conservation
Kaddu Sebunya, CEO of African Wildlife Foundation
Kim and Kaddu Sebunya, CEO of African Wildlife Foundation, connect about Africa's position on the world stage of conservation and the need to better represent wildlife in for-profit spaces. Kaddu discusses the opportunities for an expanded role of finance in community and ecosystem sustainability across the continent.
"How do we align biodiversity into these conversations? How do we represent wildlife in boardrooms? That is the question conservationists now find ourselves with. How do you involve a majority of Africans in this sector? How do you get a minority issue to become a majority concern on this convenient" - Kaddu Sebunya
Episode 5: From Ridge to Reef and Beyond with Stacy Jupiter
Stacy Jupiter, Wildlife Conservation Society’s Melanesia Regional Director and Country Director for the Solomon Islands Program
In this week's episode, David and Kim chat with Stacy Jupiter, WCS Wildlife Conservation Society’s Melanesia Regional Director and MacArthur Fellow on how she works directly with indigenous and local communities to facilitate better land management practices that benefit wildlife, marine ecosystems, and human health outcomes. They chat about her landmark Watershed Interventions for Systems Health in Fiji (WISH Fiji) program in Fiji and her landscape-level thinking that links health and nature in ways that could bring more financing to the important work of watershed management around the world.
“They’re talking about “ridge to reef” - let’s talk about integrated watershed management for multiple co-benefits; for public health, for ecosystems, and for all the climate benefits that you get along with it!” - Stacy Jupiter
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Email us at fornaturepodcast@gmail.com with any questions or if you are interested in being a guest on our show.