World Finance and Environmental Leaders Outline Strategies to Combat Climate Change through Forest and Land Protection

First chapter of upcoming book released today, featuring Mark Tercek, The Nature Conservancy’s President and CEO, Calling for New Financial Markets to Protect Forests and Lands

NEW HAVEN, CT — September 23, 2009 —In a chapter called Protecting Forests and Lands through Environmental Markets and Finance, The Nature Conservancy's President and CEO Mark Tercek discusses the important role forests can play in fighting climate change. As part of a soon-to-be-released book by the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale called Carbon Finance: Investing in Forests and Land for Climate Protection, Mark Tercek stresses the need to develop a U.S. federal climate change policy that encourages private sector investment in forest conservation.

(Read Protecting Forests and Lands through Environmental Markets and Finance here.)

“In spite of over a decade of talk about ‘natural capital’ and ‘ecosystem services,’ the world at large still does not think of nature as an asset,” states Tercek. “People don’t equate spending money on conservation with investing in the future.”

The chapter by Tercek will be included in Carbon Finance: Investing in Forests and Land for Climate Protection, as part of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Publication Series. The book is comprised of remarks made by leading practitioners in a yearlong carbon finance speaker series at Yale University that provided opinions and trend-setting experiences of market-makers in the area of forest carbon markets and finance.

Carbon Finance: Investing in Forests and Land for Climate Protection will be released in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009 at COP 15. “The release of this book will be timely as we enter the international negotiations in Copenhagen this December,” states Lise Hanners, Ph.D., State Director of the Connecticut Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. “It is time that the protection of the world’s forests takes center-stage as an affordable, meaningful, and necessary strategy in the fight against climate change.”

This book will serve as a resource for academic institutions, business professionals, entrepreneurs, institutional investors, market-makers, non-profit organizations, foundations, policymakers, and anyone else seeking to understand the important role that forest carbon markets and finance can play to address climate change.

The book will feature other experts in forest carbon markets and finance, including Elizabeth Zeljadt and Justin Felt (PointCarbon), Kate Hamilton (Ecosystem Marketplace), Edwin Aalders (International Emissions Trading Association), Laurie Wayburn (Pacific Forest Trust), Phil Cottle (ForestRE), and many others.

“As an academic institution focused on understanding the ramifications of and solutions to climate change, it is critical that we identify ways for public policies to encourage private sector investment in the protection of forests,” states Brad Gentry, Director of the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale. “A global framework on climate change must acknowledge the important role forests play in mitigation and adaptation, and as such, the need for public and private partnerships to deploy capital to protect these vital natural resources.”

The publication and speaker series was made possible through a generous gift from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and the Henry P. Kendall Foundation. To download the talks made in this speaker series, please visit the Center for Business and the Environment podcasts in the Business & Management section of Yale University’s site on Apple iTunes U.

To access Tercek's chapter and podcast, please visit the homepage of the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale. To access the publication and podcasts from last year’s Carbon Finance Speaker Series called Carbon Finance: Environmental Market Solutions to Climate Change visit www.yale.edu/cbey/carbonfinance2008.

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Joining the strengths of two preeminent professional schools, the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale supports innovative approaches to environmental problem-solving through education, advocacy, and cutting-edge research.

Visit the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale on the Web at http://www.yale.edu/cbey.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. The Conservancy and its more than 1 million members have protected nearly 120 million acres worldwide. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.