Greetings from CMM team,

For decades, nature was treated as the backdrop to economic activity, abundant, self-renewing, and free of charge. That assumption is now breaking. The Living Planet Index has fallen by nearly 70 percent since 1970, fourteen key ecosystem services are in decline, and capital is starting to price what was once invisible. Private investment in nature rose more than elevenfold between 2020 and 2024, surpassing $100 billion, and could reach $1.45 trillion by 2030. For Mongolia, where 77 percent of the land is affected by desertification and mean temperatures have climbed 2.46 degrees celsius since 1940, this shift is not abstract. As the country prepares to host COP17 to the UNCCD, biodiversity finance moves from frontier theme to direct national interest. Here is what you need to know.

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Biodiversity finance is, in the words of practitioners, the next frontier after climate finance: less mature, less standardized, but moving rapidly into the mainstream of investment strategy, corporate risk management, and financial regulation.

Biodiversity loss creates two distinct categories of financial risk. Physical nature risk encompasses direct impacts from ecosystem degradation — reduced crop yields, fisheries collapse, intensified flooding, and the loss of services that ecosystems provide for free. Transition nature risk captures the financial consequences of regulatory change, shifting consumer preferences, new technologies, and litigation as economies pivot toward nature-positive models.

Long before "water scarcity" entered mainstream financial vocabulary, a quiet pattern was taking shape. The world's most connected people were buying aquifers and securing water rights, not as speculation, but as a deliberate conviction that freshwater would become the defining resource crisis of the century.

In 2005 and 2006, the Bush family acquired nearly 300,000 acres in remote Paraguay, sitting directly above the Acuifero Guaraní, the world's largest freshwater aquifer. No explanation was offered. The land purchase spoke instead.

T. Boone Pickens was equally direct. Through Mesa Water, he accumulated rights over the Ogallala Aquifer in Texas, becoming the largest private water holder in the United States. His thesis was characteristically blunt: a USD 75 million bet he projected would return over USD 1 billion. "Water," he said, "is the new oil."

A Hong-Kong billionaire, Li Ka-shing, acquired Northumbrian Water in the UK for USD 3.9 billion. Warren Buffett took a major stake in Nalco, the leading water treatment technology company. Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, JP Morgan, and Barclays quietly consolidated positions in water utilities and engineering firms across multiple continents.

None of it was coincidence. It was pattern recognition at the highest level.

A sustainable transition of food, land, and ocean use, infrastructure, and energy could create USD 10.1 trillion in annual business opportunities and 395 million new jobs by 2030. The investment case is reinforced by evidence that rangelands which cover more than half the Earth's land surface and support the direct livelihoods of around 500 million people remain among the planet's most overlooked and increasingly degraded ecosystems, representing significant untapped restoration potential.

With just one month remaining until the big day, Capital Markets Mongolia (CMM) invites you to secure your place at the inaugural Mongolia Investment Forum: Shanghai 2026.

This forum will bring together Chinese investors, institutional leaders, and Mongolian project representatives for focused, practical discussions on:

We invite you to reserve your place below. Seats are limited, and registration is subject to confirmation.