WWF US will support efforts to close the financial gap for Chile’s Marine Protected Areas

Posted on 5 November 2021

WWF US and Chile’s Ministry of Environment expressed their commitment to collaborate in the search for long-term funding of Chile’s marine protected areas (MPAs).

The Minister of Environment for the country, Carolina Schmidt, and director and president of WWF US, Carter Roberts, manifested this commitment after they met at COP26 in Glasgow.

As Roberts highlighted, “Chile has made impressive progress over the past decade in securing management of its terrestrial protected areas and greatly expanding marine areas designated for protection within its Exclusive Economic Zone from 13% to more than 42%. But a financial gap remains to be filled if effective marine conservation is to be realized and Chile’s goal of conserving 30% of its territory for social, biodiversity and climate benefits is to be met by 2030. WWF looks forward to helping the government explore ways to close this financing gap for its marine protected areas.”

Minister Schmidt underscored that marine conservation is part of a long-term government vision to effectively conserve marine ecosystems that are protected by MPAs. “As a country, we see the ocean as part of our action on climate change, as we have stressed in our NDC and our Long-Term Climate Strategy. Achieving funding is certainly a challenge, and so we thank the support of WWF in this task and we redouble our commitment in the long term to protect our ocean, not only as part of the fight against the climate crisis, but also to protect and recover marine biodiversity, as well as to strengthen sustainable livelihoods of coastal communities that depend on a healthy ocean,” the minister of environment affirmed.