What a biodiversity economy should protect.
A biodiversity economy connects livelihoods and investment to the health of living systems. Done credibly, it begins with ecological integrity, local rights, community governance, and transparent evidence—not with a financial product looking for a landscape.
Ecological value
Species, habitats, genetic diversity, ecosystem function, and resilience.
Community value
Rights, knowledge, livelihoods, governance, access, and benefit sharing.
Evidence value
Baseline conditions, methods, monitoring, uncertainty, and independent review.
Financial value
Funding tools that serve the first three forms of value rather than displacing them.
Where credits fit—and where they do not.
Biodiversity credits are one possible financing instrument. They are not a synonym for accreditation, and they do not replace governance, ecological restoration, or long-term monitoring. A credible project would need to establish rights, additionality, measurement, safeguards, benefit distribution, independent validation, a registry or buyer framework, and durable oversight.
BFF: a place-based financing institution.
A Bioregional Financing Facility is a community-owned institution that uses participatory, transparent, place-based governance to direct resources, build project portfolios for systemic change, and support a regenerative economy.
The 2024 BioFi publication describes possible structures such as a bioregional trust or bank, project-portfolio coordination, and bioregional eco-credit programs. These are reference models, not operational claims about Sol Kin.
A responsible sequence.
- Define the bioregion, communities, ecosystems, pressures, and rights.
- Establish participatory governance and who can make which decisions.
- Assemble connected projects that address systemic needs rather than isolated transactions.
- Build transparent ecological and social monitoring into every project.
- Match grants, investment, public finance, and possible credits to the work they can responsibly fund.
- Publish decisions, flows, benefits, risks, and learning back to the place.