Kazakhstan is exploring a range of financial solutions to bring more resources to biodiversity, from strengthening the finances of protected areas and improving public spending to developing carbon markets and encouraging businesses to consider their impacts on nature.
How can countries find the money needed to protect nature?
For Kazakhstan, the question is particularly important. Around 74.5 percent of the country’s biodiversity finance comes from the government, while the private sector contributes only 3 percent. At the same time, land degradation, water scarcity and biodiversity loss are creating growing environmental and economic risks.
Closing this gap will require more than simply increasing government budgets. It means making existing public spending more effective, creating new sources of revenue for conservation and finding ways to attract private investment.
Through the UNDP Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN), Kazakhstan is working on a portfolio of finance solutions that approach the challenge from different directions, from protected areas and forests to tourism, agriculture and financial markets.
Helping protected areas become more financially sustainable
Kazakhstan’s protected areas are at the heart of efforts to conserve the country’s landscapes and wildlife. Government funding remains their main source of finance, but additional and more sustainable sources of revenue are needed.
BIOFIN is supporting Kazakhstan to strengthen the management and financial planning of protected areas. In the first half of 2026 alone, more than 60 specialists received training in modern approaches to management planning.
Protected areas are also being given more opportunities to generate their own income. A new procedure for setting tariffs for paid services, introduced in 2024, is helping national parks and nature reserves develop their revenues, with a target of increasing them sixfold by 2030.
Another opportunity lies in payments for ecosystem services. The idea is simple: people and businesses benefit from services provided by nature, such as clean water, healthy soils and forests, and financial mechanisms can help channel some of that value back into protecting the ecosystems that provide them.
BIOFIN has supported the valuation of ecosystem services in Karkaraly National Park and Ile-Balkhash Nature Reserve, helping demonstrate their economic value and build the foundation for potential future financing.
Kazakhstan is also investing in the skills needed to manage protected areas sustainably. More than 2,000 students at three universities are expected to study the fundamentals of financial planning for protected areas every year.
Making public finance for forests work better
Finding new money for biodiversity is only part of the challenge. Countries can also achieve more for nature by improving how existing public resources are planned and spent.
Kazakhstan’s forestry sector receives around US$129.9 million in government funding in 2026. UNDP BIOFIN is supporting the introduction of results-based budgeting to help connect this financing more closely with measurable forestry priorities and results.
Forest management plans are expected to be developed for all 17 regions of Kazakhstan, identifying specific measures, financing needs and potential funding sources. The methodological framework and expert team are now being developed, with plans for all regions expected to be completed by 2027.
Making ecotourism work for nature
Tourism can generate income and jobs around protected areas. But without appropriate standards, growing visitor numbers can also put additional pressure on the ecosystems people come to experience.
In 2025, Kazakhstan introduced a national ecotourism standard, developed with expert support from UNDP-BIOFIN. It establishes requirements covering biodiversity conservation, environmental education, waste management and the use of green technologies.
The next ambition is to establish a national ecotourism certification system, including certification of infrastructure and services in national parks and reserves.
BIOFIN is developing methodological materials and supporting training for businesses, protected areas and local communities. It is also contributing to educational programmes for future ecotourism professionals and methodologies to determine acceptable visitor levels and manage visitor flows in national parks.
The next step will be to pilot the certification system with a private-sector partner in one of Kazakhstan’s protected areas.
Creating incentives to restore wildlife
Kazakhstan is also looking at how financial incentives can support wildlife conservation.
Breeding wild animals in semi-free conditions and subsequently releasing them into the wild can contribute to the restoration of wildlife populations. Yet only 1.3 percent of wildlife users in Kazakhstan are currently involved in wildlife breeding.
With BIOFIN support, methodological guidelines for wildlife breeding and release were developed in 2023. More than 60 representatives of the sector received training in modern approaches during the first half of 2026.
Proposals have also been developed to improve government support for wildlife breeding, creating the foundation for its further development as a conservation tool.
Bringing nature into business and investment decisions
Nature loss is not only an environmental concern. For companies and investors, declining water availability, soil degradation and forest loss can translate into higher costs, disrupted supply chains and other financial risks.
This is why nature-related financial disclosure is gaining attention around the world. It can help businesses and financial institutions understand how they depend on nature, how their activities affect it and how those relationships can create risks and opportunities.
In 2024, BIOFIN assessed Kazakhstan’s readiness to introduce nature-related financial disclosures, engaging more than 90 representatives from government, business and the financial sector.
The assessment found considerable interest, while also identifying challenges including the need for appropriate methodologies, better ecosystem data and practical tools for evaluating nature-related risks. BIOFIN has since developed recommendations and continues to support dialogue among government, businesses and financial institutions.
Addressing unavoidable impacts on biodiversity
Kazakhstan is also working to strengthen how biodiversity impacts from development projects are addressed.
The approach follows what is known as the mitigation hierarchy: projects should first seek to avoid impacts on biodiversity, then minimise and restore damage. Biodiversity offsets should be considered only for significant residual impacts that cannot be avoided or adequately addressed through these earlier steps.
Offsetting can involve measures such as restoring ecosystems, supporting protected areas or conserving threatened species, to compensate for remaining biodiversity losses and contributing to positive conservation outcomes.
This principle was incorporated into Kazakhstan’s Environmental Code in 2021 and is considered one of the tools for implementing the country’s Concept for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity until 2035. The challenge now is to establish the conditions for its consistent and credible application in practice.
Using carbon markets to bring investment to forests
Kazakhstan’s forests offer another opportunity to connect environmental goals with new sources of finance.
Carbon markets can attract private capital for activities such as afforestation and forest restoration. Where projects meet the necessary requirements and deliver verified climate benefits, they can generate carbon units.
Kazakhstan is developing both the policy framework and practical foundations for using this mechanism in its forestry sector.
With UNDP BIOFIN support, government, business and financial-sector representatives have received training in developing carbon projects. More than 100,000 hectares of previously unaccounted-for forests have been inventoried in East Kazakhstan and Pavlodar regions, while another 20,000 hectares have been brought into the system of managed forest areas.
Policy changes are also opening new possibilities for investment. In 2025, BIOFIN proposals were reflected in amendments to the Forest Code, enabling registered investors in Kazakhstan to receive carbon offsets under the country’s Emissions Trading System, while newly established forests remain state property.
A methodology for calculating greenhouse gas removals in the forestry sector was also developed and approved in 2023, providing an important technical foundation for future forest carbon projects.
Making agricultural support more nature-positive
Biodiversity finance is not only about raising more money. It is also about ensuring that existing financial flows do not work against nature.
Agriculture is an important part of Kazakhstan’s economy and receives substantial government support. However, some subsidies, including support for pesticides and mineral fertilisers, can increase environmental pressures when they encourage practices that contribute to soil degradation, declining water quality and impacts on pollinators.
BIOFIN is supporting efforts to make agricultural subsidies more biodiversity-friendly. Proposed measures include introducing environmental criteria into subsidy programmes, gradually phasing out hazardous pesticides, encouraging sustainable agricultural practices and incorporating environmental requirements into government support.
Such reforms can help Kazakhstan pursue two objectives at the same time: supporting agricultural development while reducing pressure on the ecosystems on which agriculture itself depends.
Building a broader system for financing nature
Kazakhstan’s experience illustrates that there is no single solution to the biodiversity finance challenge.
Some of the country’s BIOFIN-supported finance solutions are already reflected in legislation and being applied in practice. Others are still being developed, tested or prepared for implementation.
Together, however, they point towards a broader shift in how biodiversity is financed: making public money work better, generating sustainable revenues from nature-based activities, changing economic incentives and creating opportunities for private investment.
From the budgets of national parks to decisions made by companies and investors, biodiversity is increasingly becoming part of Kazakhstan’s wider economic and financial agenda.
And that may be one of the most important changes of all: treating investment in nature not simply as an environmental cost, but as an investment in the ecosystems, economies and communities that depend on it.
