From Walden to Wall Street

Frontiers of Conservation Finance

"From Walden to Wall Street makes clear that a system of market-based conservation finance is vital to the future of environmental conservation." -Henry M. Paulson, Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.; Chairman of the Board of Governors, The Nature Conservancy In the absence of innovation in the field of conservation finance, a daunting funding gap faces conservationists aiming to protect America's system of landscapes that provide sustainable resources, water, wildlife habitat, and recreational amenities. Experts estimate that the average annual funding gap will be between $1.9 billion and $7.7 billion over the next forty years. Can the conservation community come up with new methods for financing that will fill this enormous gap? Which human and financial resources will allow us to fund critical land conservation needs? From Walden to Wall Street brings together the experience of more than a dozen pioneering conservation finance practitioners to address these crucial issues. Contributors presgroundbreaking ideas including mainstreaming environmental markets; governmballot measures for land conservations; convertible tax-exempt financing; and private equity markets. The creativity and insight of From Walden to Wall Street offers considerable hope that, even in this era of widespread financial constraints, the American conservation community's financial resources may potentially grow dramatically in both quantity and quality in the decades to come.