4 September, 2026

Conservation often comes with trade-offs. Around the world, communities living alongside wildlife can find themselves carrying the costs of species protection, whether through damaged crops, lost livestock or restrictions on land use. In Sweden, debates over wolf attacks on livestock continue to drive political divides. In parts of India, tensions arise as elephants come into closer contact with people and farmland. The benefits of protecting a species may be shared widely, while the costs are often concentrated among the people living closest to it. A recent example from Argentina suggests that insurance could offer part of the answer, by helping share the risk more fairly.

In Misiones province, fewer than 100 jaguars remain. As forests shrink and natural prey becomes harder to find, jaguars are increasingly turning to livestock for food. This has in turn created real financial pressures for farmers and, in some cases, lead to retaliatory killings, further threatening an already critically endangered species. To tackle this challenge, the Government of Misiones, UNDP, insurer Río Uruguay Seguros and conservation NGO Aves Argentinas developed what is believed to be the world’s first jaguar-protection insurance scheme. The province purchases the policy and provides it free of charge to residents, compensating farmers for verified livestock losses caused by jaguars.

The scheme highlights a role for insurance that sits well beyond its traditional use. We’ve touched on this before in our story on coral reef insurance, where coverage helped protect both ecosystems and the tourism economies that depend on them. Rather than simply helping individuals recover from losses, it is being used to support a conservation outcome. Insurance sits alongside a growing range of nature market mechanisms, from biodiversity credits to nature-based carbon projects, that are exploring new ways to channel finance towards environmental outcomes.

That doesn’t mean biodiversity finance is a silver bullet. A recent UNDP report on nature insurance is clear that insurance cannot solve biodiversity loss on its own. It needs to sit alongside conservation programmes, community engagement, and practical efforts to reduce conflict in the first place. Poorly designed schemes can create unintended incentives, and questions around funding and long-term impact remain.

In the search for new ways to finance nature and deliver positive social outcomes, insurance is one idea that merits a closer look. Argentina’s jaguar scheme may be just one example of how the tool could be applied in the years ahead.

By Hillevi Fock