Caucasus Nature Fund — Regional Conservation Trust for Protected Areas

The Caucasus Nature Fund (CNF) is a conservation trust fund that has financed protected-area management across Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia since 2007. It was seeded by the German government (BMZ) through the KfW development bank, together with Conservation International and WWF, and operates as a public-private partnership that matches — without exceeding — each government's own protected-area budget.

The fund supports 18 protected areas across the three countries, including the Zangezur Biosphere Complex, Khosrov Forest State Reserve, Dilijan National Park and Lake Arpi National Park in Armenia, funding ranger salaries and park operations. In 2022 alone, CNF allocated EUR 335,000 to four protected-area subdivisions of Armenia's environment ministry.

Since 2008, EUR 58.7 million has been endowed in CNF; a fresh EUR 40 million commitment from the German government pushes total committed funds toward almost EUR 100 million. The trust-fund model has since been echoed by other organisations through the Nature Trust Alliance, of which CNF is a founding member alongside the Blue Action Fund, the Prespa Ohrid Nature Trust and the Legacy Landscape Fund.

Public material documents endowment size and country-level budget allocations, but no independently published audit or third-party evaluation of on-the-ground conservation outcomes (species trends, habitat condition) was found, and the model is structurally dependent on continued German government replenishment.