Banking Nature is a documentary that looks at the growing movement to monetize the natural world and to turn endangered species, areas of outstanding natural beauty, and threatened areas into instruments of profit.

https://tlio.org.uk/banking-nature-2015-documentary-on-new-wbcsd-markets-and-the-privatisation-of-nature/

This documentary was removed from the monoconomy channel in late 2024, early 2025 for reasons unknown - at the time it was the only online copy of this most instructive film. For the sake of humanity, and sanity, please make sure that never happens again. You know what to do.

Privatization Of Nature - Who is behind the new environmental wave of interest in planting forests in Africa, making you buy rain-forest and climatic quotas for pollution? It surely wouldn't be the same which made the last financial crises in sub prime loans?

Synopsis A:

We investigate the commercialization of the natural world. Protecting our planet has become big business with companies promoting new environmental markets. This involves species banking, where investors buy up vast swathes of land, full of endangered species, to enable them to sell ‘nature credits’. Companies whose actions destroy the environment are now obliged to buy these credits and new financial centres have sprung up, specializing in this trade.

Many respected economists believe that the best way to protect nature is to put a price on it. But others fear that this market in nature could lead to companies having a financial interest in a species’ extinction. There are also concerns that – like the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 – the market in nature credits is bound to crash. And there are wider issues at stake. What guarantees do we have that our natural inheritance will be protected? And should our ecological heritage be for sale?

Synopsis B

Sandrine Feydel and Denis Delestrac delve into the world of green banking in this documentary, reporting that investors buy up the habitats of endangered species and then sell them in the form of shares. The film includes a montage of images of nature, reflective voice-overs and interviews with bankers, economists, activists and policymakers. The economist Pavan Sukhdev is interviewed, saying nature can best be protected by sticking a price tag on it. Pablo Solon is interviewed saying this subjecting of nature to free market forces as a "license to kill" it. Vandana Shiva is also interviewed.

(original title) Nature, Le Nouvel Eldorado De La Finance

ALSO KNOWN AS (AKA):

France: Nature, Le Nouvel Eldorado De La Finance

Germany: Natur - Spekulationsobjekt Mit Zukunft

Norway: Naturens kapital

United Kingdom: Banking Nature

United States: Banking Nature

World-wide: Banking Nature (English)

Original upload - www.moconomy.tv

Privatization Of Nature (2014)

Director: Sandrine Feydel, Denis Delestrac

Stars: Bertrand Dussy, Framboise Gommendy, Laurent Jacquet

Genre: Documentary

Country: France

Language: English

Also Known As: Banking Nature

Release Date: February 3, 2015 (France)