UN fund for sharing biodiversity benefits struggles for attention — and money

On November 19, 2025, a British artificial intelligence firm named TierraViva AI made its inaugural donation of $1,000 to the United Nations' Cali Fund. This marked the first and only financial contribution received by the fund, which was established following the U.N. biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, a year prior. The primary aim of the Cali Fund is to ensure that companies reaping the benefits of "digital sequence information" — a technical term referring to digitized genetic data derived from global biodiversity — share a portion of those benefits with the countries that host such biodiversity and the Indigenous peoples and local communities responsible for its preservation.

The fund officially welcomed contributions on February 25, 2025, but as of August 2025, it had only secured two confirmed donations amounting to $6,000, significantly falling short of the ambitious target of $1 billion per year. TierraViva AI's CEO described the payment as an "ice-breaker," aimed at encouraging other hesitant companies.

U.S. biotechnology company Ginkgo Bioworks had expressed interest in contributing earlier in the year but had not yet transferred funds. In July, British biotech firm Prozomix made a $5,000 contribution, though it was not required to do so under the current rules. Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), lamented the lack of awareness surrounding the fund during an interview at the U.N.

Environment Programme's headquarters in Nairobi, where U.N. negotiators convened for preparatory meetings ahead of the conference.