Nature Trust Alliance

Collaboration for Conservation

A collaborative venture among four of the world’s leading conservation trust funds, the Nature Trust Alliance provides operational support services (financial management, administration, reporting, etc.) to its member funds so that they can focus on their core missions of employing innovative and sustainable financing mechanisms for nature conservation.

NTA was founded in 2016 by Caucasus Nature Fund (CNF) and Prespa Ohrid Nature Trust (PONT) who have since been joined by Blue Action Fund (Blue Action) and Legacy Landscapes Fund (LLF). While cooperation between conservation trust funds had been discussed within the trust fund community for a number of years, the NTA shared services initiative was a first and remains, as far as we know, unique.

NTA is based in Frankfurt am Main and all of its member are foundations established under German law. The Federal Republic of Germany is a major funder to all four members, joined by different funding partners in each organization. In 2022 the member foundations together combine about € 500 million in capital for conservation (circa € 130 million for Blue Action, € 95 million for CNF, € 186 million for LLF and € 75 million for PONT).

Blue Action was established in 2016 to support non-governmental organizations in their efforts to conserve the oceans and coastlines in the developing world, focusing on marine protected areas in the most sensitive coastal waters of Africa, Latin America and Asia/Pacific. Blue Action’s goal is to contribute to reducing the dramatic loss of marine biodiversity and to advancing local development.

As one of the world’s largest ocean conservation funders, Blue Action is supporting 17 marine projects in 2022 with a budget of more than € 8 million.

Learn more at: www.blueactionfund.org

CNF is a regional conservation trust fund created to protect the unique biodiversity of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, mainly through support for the region’s magnificent national parks and nature reserves, home to some of the world’s highest levels of endemism in a temperate climate zone, including an endangered leopard sub-species which roams the borders of Europe.

Established in 2007, CNF made its first grant in 2009 and in 2022 will support the operations of at least 18 protected areas in the Caucasus with more than € 2.5 million.

Learn more at: www.caucasus-naturefund.org

Established in 2015 as a transboundary conservation trust fund, PONT works in the Prespa-Ohrid ecoregion covering parts of Albania, Greece and North Macedonia. The Prespa and Ohrid lakes are among Europe’s oldest and the rich natural heritage of the lakes and their surrounding mountains is regarded as one of the most ecologically valuable in Europe.

PONT’s mission is to provide effective long-term funding for the national parks and conservation organisations in the region. In 2022, it has budgeted more than €2 million to support 10 protected areas and up to 23 environmental actors.

Learn more at: www.pont.org

Established in 2020, LLF’s grant program is focused on financing the core operating costs of the world’s most important protected areas and their buffer zones, which it calls “Legacy Landscapes”. LLF’s ambition is to support at least 30 Legacy Landscapes with long-term funding of $ 1 million per year, and LLF aims to meet that target by 2030.

In its 2022 program, LLF plans to support seven Legacy Landscapes in Africa, Asia and South America with project co-financed from five funding partners.

Learn more at: www.legacylandscapes.org

APPROACH

As relatively small organizations, conservation trust funds (CTF) in general struggle to find the right balance between the size, qualifications and cost of administrative and support staff. Combined with volatile financial markets, limited funding opportunities, and sometimes rigorous reporting and compliance, CTF’s can find stability by collaboration and consolidating their “back office” activities to streamline their operations. Sharing services can be a key strategy for supporting CTF effectiveness: sharing overhead costs and eliminating redundancies across organizations helps the CTF sector be more efficient, reduce costs and risk, improve access to high-quality services and foster the collaborations that lead to program innovation.

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TEAM

Alba Carreras
Alba is an experienced financial manager who takes pride in providing the best support possible to the NTA foundations. Prior to joining NTA in …

Alba Carreras
Director of Finance and Investments
Nevila Xhepa
Nevila enjoys reconciling numbers and working with people. Prior to joining NTA in 2019, Nevila worked for several years in the private sector as …

Nevila Xhepa
Head of Finance and Controlling
Ivana Springstein
Ivana has a master’s degree in economics and gained several experiences on various fields of marketing, research and implementation of international projects. Coming previously …

Ivana Springstein
Head of Operations and HR
Sherrie Bahr
Sherrie comes from a background in life science but has obtained some experience in finance in order to perform her role at NTA. Before …

Sherrie Bahr
Administrative Assistant

Nature Trust Alliance | Collaboration for Conservation

Nature Trust Alliance

Collaboration for Conservation

APPROACH

TEAM

Alba Carreras

Nevila Xhepa

Ivana Springstein

Sherrie Bahr