Sustainable Finance from Asia’s Tiger Landscapes

Time & Location
October 21, 2026 at 18:15 – 20:00
UN Pavilion, Blue Zone, Yerevan, Armenia

Event Description

Asia’s tiger landscapes are among the world’s most biodiverse and economically important ecosystems. They store carbon, regulate water, support rural livelihoods and provide habitat for threatened species. Yet financing for their protection, restoration and sustainable management remains insufficient, fragmented and heavily dependent on grants. Closing this gap requires approaches that connect biodiversity objectives with sustainable economic activity and private-sector investment.

This event will explore how the Tiger Landscapes Investment Facility (TLIF) is addressing this challenge through blended finance for nature-positive micro, small and medium-sized enterprises operating in and around tiger landscapes. Combining technical assistance, investment-pipeline development and risk-sharing mechanisms, TLIF aims to enable domestic financial institutions to finance enterprises that contribute to landscape protection, restoration, sustainable production and resilient livelihoods.

Drawing on country-level experience from Bhutan, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand, the discussion will examine how biodiversity priorities can be translated into financeable investments across different ecological, institutional and financial contexts. It will address the practical requirements for identifying viable enterprises, building investment pipelines, integrating biodiversity criteria into financial decision-making and designing appropriate de-risking mechanisms. Environmental and social safeguards, measurement of biodiversity outcomes, and the conditions needed for replication and scale will also feature.

Towards an integrated approach to landscape finance, the event will also examine complementary instruments being developed by members of the Tiger Conservation Coalition, including the Tiger Impact Certificate and Tiger Bond. The discussion will consider how grants, guarantees, investment vehicles and outcome-based instruments, underpinned by verified biodiversity impacts, can work together to mobilise investment and sustain conservation outcomes at landscape scale.

List of speakers

• Elke Steinmetz, Head of Biodiversity, Head of Division for International Cooperation on Biodiversity, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety
• Deepak Kumar Jnawali, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Environment,, Government of Nepal
• (Confirmed) Representative from the Govt. of Bhutan
• (TBC) Duncan Lang, ADB
• Onno van den Heuvel, Global Lead Nature Finance, UNDP
• Karen Wood, Tiger Conservation Coalition and Director of Policy, Panthera
• Gaurav Gupta, Senior Advisor and Blended Finance Lead, UNDP

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