The Nature Pledge: Biodiversity and Sustainability in Asia and the Pacific

In this episode of The Nature Pledge podcast, we talk about the need to pivot from the "doom narrative" that often dominates our discussion on nature loss, to a more constructive view that sees also the business and finance opportunity. "Less doom, and more boom" is one way of putting it. And indeed, that phrase belongs to our guest, Andrew Mitchell, who has spent more than two decades trying to get nature onto the balance sheets of banks, asset managers, finance ministries and businesses. Join us for an illuminating discussion!

In this episode of The Nature Pledge podcast, we speak to Syed Mohazri, IPBES Coordinating Author, and former Chair of the Malaysia Platform for Business and Biodiversity.Peering through a Southeast Asian lens, Syed offers his insights into this year’s IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment, the landmark global scientific study evaluating how corporate operations depend on and impact natural ecosystems. He offers frank, sometimes controversial but always constructive views on a range of Business and Biodiversity issues including on nature-finance, nature-related financial disclosures, and business engagement in NBSAPs.

In this episode of the Nature Pledge Podcast, we sit down with Professor Ryo Kohsaka of the University of Tokyo, a lead coordinating author of IPBES's first-ever global assessment on business and biodiversity. Together, we unpack what the report means for Asia-Pacific.The IPBES Assessment's message is simple: every business, in every sector, depends on and impacts biodiversity — and the knowledge to act already exists. The harder question is why action still lags in Asia Pacific?Professor Kohsaka explains that the region is fundamentally different from other regions with Asia's "working landscapes" of paddy fields and secondary forests. that don't fit a one-size-fits-all global methodology. He explains too, why Japan is a leading adopter of nature-related financial disclosures in the region and globally.

Over the past two decades, Cambodia’s economic transition to lower-middle-income status has come at a steep environmental cost—including the loss of a massive share of its humid primary forests. In this two-part episode, we explore the contrasting priorities of Cambodia’s policy makers and Indigenous Peoples. Where do goals overlap and where are they still misaligned? Ken Bopreang, Director of Biodiversity at Cambodia's Ministry of Environment, outlines the state's vision including a massive reforestation effort and new inter-ministerial working groups.Mane Yun, Executive Director of the Cambodia Indigenous Peoples Organization (CIPO), shares the perspective of an indigenous community facing legal challenges for exercising traditional land use patterns. In this episode, we also discuss how multilateral actors and bilateral donors can better serve the needs of Indigenous Peoples.

In 2022, the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment (RHE), the same year the world agreed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.In this episode, we speak to Astrid Puentes Riaño, UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and discuss the nexus of human rights and nature loss.Has the RHE accelerated action on nature loss, and if so, how? Importantly, how has her work been received by policy makers and business and finance leaders in the countries she visits? And what do we make of the contradictions and complementarities between the rights of nature and human rights?