News Blog
Jul
2026
“By channeling resources to large-scale landscapes, LLF occupies a unique niche and offers renewed hope for conserving some of the world’s most biologically rich regions. At a time of significant global shortfalls in biodiversity financing, its model demonstrates the potential to mobilize greater ambition and investment in protected area management.”
Dr. Mohamed Bakarr
LLF Supervisory Board member & Lead Environmental Specialist in the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Secretariat
Annual Report 2025
The full 2025 annual report contains further detailed information on LLF’s operations and finances, as well as details of our impact and impact measurement, including insights and stories on how our funding protects nature, people, and climate on the ground.
LLF in Numbers
2025 has been a year of continued progress, marked by success in securing more contributions, new calls for proposals and growing grant expenditures, reflecting LLF’s ongoing commitment to its mission. In 2025, LLF secured new contractual funding of approximately USD 21M. This includes additional EUR 20M from BMZ for a dedicated funding window for conservation efforts led by IP&LC, as well as a smaller donation by the Rob Walton Foundation for milestone reviews. By the end of 2025, total secured donor funding is estimated at approximately USD 402.8M, sourced from public funding, trusts and foundations, and corporate partnerships.
Expanding our Portfolio
In April 2025, LLF launched two new calls for proposals. The first introduces a new 1:1:1 funding model, combining equal contributions from public, corporate, and philanthropic donors, and is designed to support national and international NGOs engaged in area-based conservation. The second call focuses on providing direct support to IP&LC organizations, recognizing their vital role in conserving and managing landscapes. The publication of the IP&LC call was the culmination of several months of intensive preparation by the entire LLF team, as well as a diverse range of experts to ensure the approach was inclusive, equitable, and responsive to the needs and realities of IP&LC-led conservation initiatives.
The scale and permanence of the biodiversity crisis de mand that conservation finance evolve, becoming more programmatic, reliable, more inclusive of Indigenous and local stewardship, and deeply integrated with climate action. In a time of tightening budgets and widening needs, long-term capital is not simply helpful; it is foundational.
As LLF moves into 2026, our mission remains clear: to ensure the world’s most critical ecosystems receive the sustained support they need to thrive. In an era of diminishing public finance and growing ecological pressure, LLF provides stability where short-term financing and volatility has become the norm, demonstrating that lasting conservation impact is possible. Conservation that lasts needs funding that lasts for nature, climate and people.
May
2026
I am celebrating my 5-year anniversary in leading Legacy Landscapes Fund!
I almost forgot as it is again a busy time here and we are looking forward to new colleagues, new grantees and new landscapes to join in 2026. But what a fantastic time these five years have been: Building an organization from scratch, a conservation start-up based on careful analysis of what gaps need to be filled in conservation funding globally.
Many brilliant minds were involved in conceptualizing this fund, I was lucky enough to be entrusted to bring all of this to life. Long-term conservation funding, delivered in a programmatic, flexible and trustful manner to enable those conservation actors on the ground to work with financial security over 15 or even 50 years! Coming from conservation practice myself, I know that this is a paradigm shift in doing business. It allows long-term thinking, addressing the very big conservation problems, it allows learning and innovation, it allows deep relationship-building with all stakeholders and it allows cohesive local teams with more job security.
LLF took off in early 2021 with a generous starting capital from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and a lot of support from KfW. The first months of the organization were spent in corona times at my kitchen table. I had a feeling that there were insurmountable piles of things to do, processes to create, discussions to have, problems to solve and hurdles to overcome. And at the same time, there was a feeling of enthusiasm, motivation and conviction that LLF is a great instrument which can support those on the ground more meaningfully.
Five years later – LLF is hiring new members for our team, has an office space in Berlin, we are now supporting 15 immensely important landscapes for global biodiversity and local livelihoods, we have accumulated biodiversity funding capital of about 400 million USD, our support covers an area equivalent to the size of Sweden, we spent about 16 million USD in 2025 with a minuscule admin rate of 4%, LLF will co-develop 6 new programs with future grantees in 2026, we have an inspiring group of international public and private donor supporters and gain traction as an impactful funding model for inclusive conservation.
All of this was possible because of:
- Trustful donors who put money into an instrument in infancy stage
- The freedom to pilot ideas, start the work, re-adjust, learn and evolve
- A global group of advisors, friends, and experts who gave their time, dedication, brain and time capacity to support, brainstorm and help to make this work
- Grantees who learn together with us, trust us, criticize us, and help us get better
- A world-class team of motivated, bright, diverse, outspoken, hard-working and dedicated people who contribute to LLF with their hearts and brains every day in Berlin
🌿Thanks to all of you and onwards with purpose!
Jan
2026
Statement on future funding of Odzala Kokoua legacy landscape program
In late December 2025, LLF decided to continue funding the Odzala-Kokoua legacy landscape program managed by African Parks. This decision comes with conditions.
In response to the findings of the international law firm Omnia Strategy LLP, LLF had previously decided to maintain support for the landscape while completing a new Environmental and Social Due Diligence (ESDD) study and a milestone review by the end of 2025. These assessments were intended to provide LLF with a more comprehensive basis for decisions on future funding for Odzala-Kokoua. A non-technical summary of the updated environmental and social action plan (ESAP) and the milestone review and its recommendations will be published shortly on LLF’s website.
LLF is firmly committed to the highest ethical and operational standards. Accountability, along with the protection of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and ecosystems, are central to all conservation efforts we support.
LLF’s decision to continue funding
After carefully reviewing the results of both studies, LLF has concluded that recommendations provided by both the ESDD and the milestone review will further strengthen environmental and social safeguards, governance, and human rights compliance in Odzala-Kokoua National Park. African Parks and the park management have agreed to adopt these recommendations.
Both assessments show that management of Odzala-Kokua National Park has made clear progress over the past years, with the ESDD evidencing an improved risk profile resulting from actions already taken. This progress has been confirmed by the milestone review, which finds that over 80% of the environmental and social action plan (ESAP) has been delivered. In addition, since July 2025, African Parks’ Board had already strengthened its oversight and accountability mechanisms, including establishing a Rights and Safeguards Subcommittee. African Parks further adopted an integrated management plan called Project Bomoko (Conservation Built on Human Rights | African Parks). Through this management plan, African Parks is mainstreaming safeguards measures and embedding a human rights-based approach to conservation to drive compliance with international safeguards standards across all its programs. LLF’s continued funding is intended to sustain this momentum and support the full implementation of the remaining recommendations for the benefit of local communities.
LLF believes that the steps taken since the Omnia report provide the necessary framework and action plan to guide Odzala‑Kokoua National Park in the implementation of its conservation strategy in a way that is aligned with international human rights standards and best practices. These include measures such as the set-up of the Independent Panel for Grievance Resolution, the development of a remedy framework, the implementation of the Odzala Indigenous Peoples plan and a strengthened collaboration with local human rights NGOs.
Conditions that are attached to continued funding into Odzala‑Kokoua National Park are the following:
LLF will continue to closely follow the implementation of further improvements in the park management by African Parks. On the ground, this means intensifying its on-site monitoring of the program. This includes increasing the frequency of its site visits to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the actions plans agreed with and proposed to African Parks and Odzala‑Kokoua National Park through the recently conducted ESDD, the milestone review and the Project Bomoko.
A minimum of 30% of LLF’s funding to Odzala-Kokoua will support the significantly increased investment in community development and strengthened safeguards around engagement with Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This includes prioritizing the land use planning and related zoning of the park within the next year.
LLF is convinced that continued funding into Odzala-Kokoua National Park will deliver positive and critical impacts for improving the human rights situation in the Congo Basin, especially for the Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the program area. African Parks as an institution is taking important steps in order to shift towards a human rights-based conservation approach. LLF’s support, particularly through its environmental and social safeguards system, has contributed to this shift and can further support African Parks and the park management on their path towards equitable and inclusive conservation.
Nov
2025
Join us live on Microsoft Teams on 15 December at 13:30 CET
Conservation often relies on short-term, project-based funding, a model that limits long-term planning, capacity building, and sustained results for biodiversity, climate, and communities. Yet lasting conservation success requires a more stable and programmatic approach to finance.
LLF’s upcoming Expert Talk, “A Dollar is Not Just a Dollar,” will bring together leading voices from across the conservation and finance sectors to discuss what additionality long-term financing can bring, and how its impact can be measured.
The session will explore questions such as:
- Impact of additionality of longer-term conservation finance security for conservation
- What mechanisms help balance long-term funding security and flexibility with accountability?
- How to measure and report this additionality?
Speakers from organizations including the Campaign for Nature, Wildlife Conservation Society, Fauna & Flora International, Arcadia, and IUCN will share perspectives on the call for long-term funding, lessons from implementation on the ground, donor expectations, and approaches to measuring additionality.
By gathering experts and practitioners, LLF aims to better understand how financial security over time can drive more durable conservation outcomes, and how to reflect these insights in its impact reporting framework.
Oct
2025
“Legacy Landscapes Fund has a big impact on our work”
In just five years, Legacy Landscapes Fund (LLF) has built a portfolio that contributes to the conservation of global biodiversity. On 7 October, representatives of 15 landscapes that receive funding from LLF across Africa, Asia, and Latin America presented their work in Berlin. LLF, in cooperation with KfW Development Bank, invited national and international guests to the portfolio exhibition titled Nature, Climate, People.
“Without local people, climate and nature conservation cannot succeed.”
Miriam Philippe – Co-Head of the Environmental Policy, Biodiversity, Forests, and Marine Conservation Division at BMZ
In her keynote address, Miriam Philippe, Co-Head of the Environmental Policy, Biodiversity, Forests, and Marine Conservation Division at BMZ, praised LLF for not only supporting global biodiversity, but also contributing to Germany’s climate and development goals. “LLF is an important finance-window to achieve these goals,” she said. LLF funding secures peoples’ livelihoods and important natural functions, Miriam Philippe added. She also called LLF an important pillar for cooperation with Indigenous peoples. “Without local people, climate and nature conservation cannot succeed.”
BMZ (German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) is one of LLF’s key donors, alongside France, Norway, the United Kingdom, and several private philanthropic foundations. KfW helped to set up the funding using their previous experience in establishing several conservation trust funds.
Thomas Duwe, co-chair of the Supervisory Committee of KfW, sees LLF as a success story. “LLF’s approach is to provide long-term funding for important nature reserves. Our experience is that there is a great need for this,” Duwe said after the welcome address of LLF’s supervisory board chair, Heiko Warnken.
By 2030, LLF hopes to support a minimum of 30 landscapes with flexible long-term financial support, in order to secure ecosystem services, fight species extinction, and support local and Indigenous communities to preserve their livelihoods. LLF brings together public and private donors for this purpose and provides programmatic grant funding for either 15 years or for perpetuity. The organization was established at the end of 2020 by BMZ as an independent charitable foundation under German law.
In Namibia, a community-managed People’s Park forms a protective corridor between Skeleton Coast National Park and Etosha National Park. Mendes Vinte, Deputy Director of the Wildlife & Landscapes Programme at WWF Namibia, presented the concept for this emerging management arrangement. “In view of increasing droughts, animals need more space, but the interests of approximately 18,000 residents in the area must also be protected. They depend on an intact environment, but also on economic sources of income.” With the support of LLF, a dialogue process with communities on the development of the People’s Park and an environmental and social action plan are implemented, Mendes Vinte reported.
“Many conservation organizations struggle from one short-term project funding to the next. We give them security for 15 or even 50 years. That’s incredible.”
Simon Chaplin – CEO of Arcadia and LLF Supervisory Board Member
Simon Chaplin, Chief Executive Officer at Arcadia and member of LLF’s Supervisory Board, highlighted the security associated with LLF funding for the management of protected areas. “Many conservation organizations struggle from one short-term project funding to the next. We give them security for 15 or even 50 years. That’s incredible.”
This was also confirmed by Yanuar Cahyo, Biodiversity Coordinator at Fauna & Flora International for the Tambrauw Mountains legacy landscape in Indonesia. “LLF has a big impact on our work,” he said. “LLF’s financing model enables us to establish participatory structures for cooperation with Indigenous populations and to build trust. That takes time.”
Yanuar Cahyo is one of 39 experts from LLF-funded landscapes who were invited to attend the week-long learning and sharing event in Berlin. During the second half of the week, participants travelled to a venue outside of Berlin to take part in three days of workshops about nature conservation, where the focus was on peer-to-peer learning and collaboration.
At the exhibition opening, LLF Executive Director Stefanie Lang emphasized the importance of sharing experiences. LLF, she said, aims to build a community of conservation experts to continuously improve conservation practice on the ground. “We can see that conservation activities nowadays are getting more complex – political influence, land-use planning, species monitoring, law enforcement, livelihood activities, and much more. To negotiate all those different interests, NGOs need time and money to develop forums for negotiation and trust. LLF allows for this with our long–term support.”
Jul
2025
Completion of Omnia Report related to Odzala-Kokoua National Park
Legacy Landscapes Fund (LLF) deeply regrets that the recently concluded investigation by leading international law firm Omnia Strategy LLP has confirmed certain allegations of human rights abuses involving ecoguards at Odzala‑Kokoua National Park. LLF takes these matters with the utmost seriousness and remains firmly committed to the highest ethical and operational standards. Accountability, along with the protection of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and ecosystems, is central to all conservation efforts we support.
LLF has been informed of the safeguarding constraints that prevent African Parks from releasing the full report by Omnia Strategy LLP — constraints that are intended to protect the rights to privacy of the persons concerned as well as to protect witnesses and ongoing legal proceedings. Nevertheless, as an obligation under the Environmental and Social Safeguards System (ESMS) of LLF, serious incidents which involve harm to people need to be shared with LLF by implementing partners. African Parks has met its obligations by providing all serious incidents and updates in due time during the LLF funding period. LLF has monitored these cases closely and continues to follow up on their handling. It is LLF’s understanding that the majority of alleged cases which were described in the press happened before our funding period.
Despite not having access to the findings and recommendations of the Omnia investigation, multiple exchanges with African Parks have made it clear to LLF that African Parks is committed to addressing procedural gaps, particularly those evident during the early years of its management of Odzala-Kokoua National Park. LLF understands that all known cases have either been resolved or are currently being addressed. Depending on the nature and severity of each incident, appropriate sanctions have been imposed or are in the process of being imposed on individuals found responsible for misconduct. Where appropriate to do so, cases will be referred to the local courts.
In addition, African Parks has announced specific measures to ensure the protection of human rights in the program area and beyond through a dedicated action plan. These include:
- the establishment of an independent panel of African judges and human rights specialists who will handle investigations into all allegations of serious misconduct impacting local communities and other stakeholders living in and around all protected areas managed by African Parks;
- the development of a remedy framework for victims;
- the revision of the curricula for rangers and new staff for risk prevention and proceedings;
- the implementation of an organization-wide action plan to ensure that a structural human rights-based approach is anchored throughout African Parks and that international human rights standards are adhered to.
With the above-mentioned measures in place, the implementation of the action plan, and given that African Parks is embedding these safeguarding measures in its day‑to‑day operations, LLF will maintain support for Odzala‑Kokoua National Park while undertaking two reviews in 2025: an updated Environmental and Social Due Diligence and a milestone assessment. These studies will gauge how effectively human rights safeguards are integrated and will guide our decision on future funding at the end of 2025. A summary of the findings will be published in early 2026.
LLF’s funding is essential to ensure that key remedy actions can be implemented and that the human rights situation is further improving with those measures. African Parks will report to LLF on a quarterly basis on the status of implementation of the action plan, including on remedy actions.
Since the beginning of its grant, LLF has contributed to tangible improvements in the human rights situation in Odzala-Kokoua National Park through clear guidelines, targeted support, and institutional reforms. A key component was the 2021 Environmental and Social Due Diligence (ESDD) study on environmental and human rights risks, which led to a range of measures, including staff training, regular audits of standard operating procedure (SOP) implementation, and a strengthened partnership with the local human rights organization Cercle des Droits de l’Homme et du Développement (CDHD) and the Observatoire Congolais des Droits de l’Homme (OCDH) to provide independent oversight of investigations and assist in conflict resolution. Representatives of local communities participate in decision-making through their involvement on the park foundation’s board. Additionally, a protocol for Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), a dedicated plan for Indigenous Peoples, and a gender equity action plan were developed. LLF also supported the strengthening of the grievance mechanism and the launch of a process carried out in collaboration with the Congolese government and local communities to review access rights and zoning for the use of natural resources within the park.
May
2025
Completion of Omnia Report related to Odzala-Kokoua National Park
Legacy Landscapes Fund acknowledges the completion of the independent investigation report by Omnia Strategy LLP, commissioned by the board of African Parks and undertaken in response to deeply concerning allegations of human rights abuses.
We take these matters very seriously and remain committed to upholding the highest ethical and operational standards through our Environmental and Social Management System. Ensuring accountability and safeguarding the well-being of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and ecosystems is at the heart of our work.
LLF is in contact with African Parks and with our Supervisory Board to define next steps after the finalization of the report, in compliance with LLF’s Environmental and Social Management System. Once these consultations have been finalized, we will provide a more detailed response.
Apr
2025
The Maloca of the Jaguar: Protecting a Sacred and Strategic Landscape
Members of the LLF team recently traveled to Colombia to learn about program implementation on the ground in the Chiribiquete legacy landscape – un paisaje para siempre – one of the largest and most emblematic landscapes in the LLF portfolio.
Jan
2025
At the start of the new year, our Executive Director Stefanie sat down with Radio France Internationale (RFI) to discuss how Legacy Landscapes Fund drives impactful conservation finance.
Oct
2024
In her recent interview with Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung, our Executive Director Stefanie Lang shared her impressions on what is at stake for COP16 in Colombia and Legacy Landscape Fund’s (LLF) contribution to financing protected areas worldwide.