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The Cali Fund promises conservation benefits, but only if countries and businesses take action

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s new financial mechanism to fund conservation efforts involves for-profit users of biodiversity-derived genetic data contributing to the Cali Fund. This global fund promises benefits for biodiversity, Indigenous people and local communities while maintaining open data, but relies on action from countries and businesses.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of the new DSI multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the members and the secretariat of the DSI Scientific Network. This work was supported by the German Alliance of Scientific Organization’s project ‘Access and Benefit Sharing Information Platform’.

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Correspondence to Amber Hartman Scholz.

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Global Biodiversity Framework targets: http://www.cbd.int/gbf/targets/

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Orozco, P., Scholz, A.H. The Cali Fund promises conservation benefits, but only if countries and businesses take action. Nat. Rev. Biodivers. 1, 276–278 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44358-025-00050-z

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