The Japan Times - Cali Biodiversity Fund Struggles After Raising Only $7,085

The Cali Fund, created in 2024 to channel business contributions into biodiversity protection, has collected only $7,085 despite expectations of billions of dollars.

established at the 2024 UN biodiversity conference, the Cali Fund was meant to raise billions of dollars for nature protection, but so far it has collected only $7,085. It is a slow start for a fund meant as a showcase for innovative financing, which charges companies that profit from using genetic data derived from nature. The trickle of money highlights how hard it is to raise funds for biodiversity. As a key UN biodiversity summit in Armenia, running until Oct 30, discusses its future, here is a look at how the fund works and why it has struggled.

How does the fund work?

Adopted at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, at the end of 2024, the fund began operating in February 2025. It proposes that companies in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, biotechnology and animal and plant breeding pay one percent of their annual profits or 0.1 percent of their turnover. Its designers suggested it could raise one billion dollars a year, based on those sectors’ revenues. So far, only three companies have contributed: British firms TierraViva AI ($1,000) and Prozomix ($5,000), and Belgian company E-BIOM ($1,085). Two others have pledged a further $3,571.

What is the rationale?

Digital sequence information (DSI), data derived from genetic resources such as plants, animals, fungi, viruses and micro-organisms, is freely available in digital databases. Companies use it to create economic value, for example by developing a medicine or a cream or improving a crop. The Cali Fund is based on the idea that those who benefit from this information should contribute to protecting biodiversity and supporting the local communities that preserve it. The fund is not legally binding, but it invites states to adopt measures encouraging companies to pay.

Why are companies reluctant?

The main problem is that the “mechanism still relies very heavily on incentives and voluntary contributions”, stated Juliette Landry of the Paris-based sustainable development think tank IDDRI. “As long as these incentives are not strong enough and consistent across countries, a company may well ask why it should contribute when its competitors are not doing so.” Pakhi Das of the NGO Plant-for-the-Planet stated no country at present has legislation encouraging contributions to the fund, and none is discussing such a law.

Companies also want safeguards on how the money is set to be used, stated Vishaish Uppal, a director at WWF-India. They also want to be sure that the fund’s international certificates, documenting payment for the use of genetic resources, are accepted nationally so they do not pay twice.

What does the pharmaceutical industry say?

“The level of participation in the Cali Fund reflects ongoing questions about the design and implementation of the mechanism, rather than a lack of commitment to biodiversity,” stated Guilherme Cintra, director of innovation policy at the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations. “The current mechanism overlaps with existing law, relies on inaccurate assumptions about how data is used in the discovery of medicines,” he stated. Several major cosmetics companies did not respond to AFP’s requests for comment.

Is success still possible? The small amount collected “is not enough (on its own) to determine whether the mechanism is a success or a failure,” Landry stated. “In the coming years, the question is set to be whether governments manage to create the right conditions so that companies… actually contribute to this mechanism.”

K.Inoue--JT