Exploring biodiversity finance and forest conservation with the PROFOR network

In a keynote for the PROFOR network, Dario Schulz explored the challenges of designing credible biodiversity finance, drawing on INTERCEDE research and Finland’s METSO programme.

Fjord and forest

On 20 May 2026, Dario Schulz delivered an online keynote presentation for the PROFOR network (Promoting Sustainable Forestry in a Growing Bioeconomy), a collaborative platform that brings together forestry research organizations from across the Nordic and Baltic countries.

The keynote resonated strongly with PROFOR’s focus on addressing the forest-based bioeconomy trilemma: enhancing carbon storage and sequestration, increasing the sustainable supply of roundwood to substitute fossil-based materials, and maintaining forest biodiversity alongside a broad range of ecosystem services. In the Nordic–Baltic region, forests are central to this balance, providing timber and bio-based resources while also supporting biodiversity conservation, climate regulation, clean water, and recreational and cultural values.

The presentation focused on the rapidly evolving field of biodiversity and nature credits, examining key concepts such as additionality and integrity challenges in biodiversity finance from a theory of change perspective and incorporating lessons learned from voluntary carbon markets. As interest grows in market-based mechanisms to support nature conservation, these issues are becoming increasingly important to ensure that biodiversity investments deliver measurable and lasting environmental benefits.

Drawing on research from the INTERCEDE project, Dario also presented the Finnish METSO conservation programme as a case study for rigorous counterfactual impact evaluation. METSO is a public, national payments for forest biodiversity scheme based on voluntary conservation contracts established by the Finnish Government to halt the decline of forest biodiversity and support its long-term recovery. The programme combines measures to expand protected areas, enhance biodiversity in commercially managed forests, improve scientific knowledge and strengthen collaboration among forestry and environmental stakeholders.

The case study highlighted how rigorous evaluation methods based on counterfactuals can help quantify the the extent to which changes in forest structure and associated biodiversity outcomes can be attributed to conservation interventions, thereby strengthening the evidence base for future biodiversity finance initiatives.