BBVA and CAF sign US$50 million loan for ecosystems

With the purpose of financing biodiversity preservation initiatives that have a positive impact on strategic ecosystems, such as productive land use, sustainable livestock production, watershed restoration and forest conservation, and waste management, among others, CAF –Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean – approved a US$50 million credit line for BBVA in Colombia.

BBVA President in Colombia, Mario Pardo, and CAF Executive President, Sergio Díaz-Granados, signed an agreement to conserve and restore Colombia’s strategic ecosystems and support the population that inhabits them to make sustainable use of their natural resources and benefit from their ecosystem services.

The resources will be used to promote productive use of land, such as forest plantations, sustainable livestock production, local agriculture and urban gardens; ecosystem services, such as forest conservation and decontamination of surface or underground water bodies; tourism and ecotourism services; nature-based solutions such as soil erosion control and climate risk reduction due to landslides.

(See here: Energy transition and other key points of the Bi-ON 2024 thematic agenda)

Likewise, reforestation of urban forests and conservation of wetlands, waste and plastic management, forestry and plantations and the restoration of terrestrial and marine habitats, among others.

Besidesit was defined that up to 50% of the credit line, that is, US$ 25 million, will be used to finance biodiversity projects of small and medium-sized companies in Colombia that are interested in promoting initiatives aimed at these ends.

(Read here: More than 500 pieces of Colombian history and literature will be auctioned in Bogotá)

“At BBVA we are committed to preserving the immense biodiversity that Colombia has, being the most biodiverse country per square kilometer in the world, all of us who live in it have the mission of ensuring its conservation. That is why this agreement that we announce today ratifies that commitment, on this occasion joining the ecosystemic approach that CAF has designed to address the needs in terms of natural preservation that the countries of Latin America require and in the case of Colombia, the resources will be directed to the preservation of the strategic ecosystems that the country has,” said Mario Pardo Bayona, CEO of BBVA in Colombia.

For his part, Sergio Díaz-Granados, executive president of CAF, stated that