A Forest Promise

Aim

Launch Peru's first Biodiversity Credits in the Manu Biosphere Reserve, the most biodiverse region on earth and bring it to life through art

High-Integrity Biodiversity Credits for the Manu Biosphere Reserve - Brought to life through art

Own proof of impact in the Amazon's most biodiverse landscape — and help the Crees Foundation for Manu pioneer a new way to fund conservation in Peru.

The Opportunity: A Missing Price Signal for Nature

The Manu Biosphere Reserve is the most biodiverse region on Earth, Manu is a living library of species found nowhere else. But biodiversity has a problem: it generates enormous value for all of us, and almost none of it for the people protecting it. Forests are only worth more standing than felled if someone is willing to pay for what the services they provide - clean water, stable climate, species survival.

That's the gap biodiversity credits are built to close. As the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework pushes the world to close the global biodiversity funding gap, Biodiversity credits are emerging as a way to turn verified conservation outcomes into a financial instrument - giving nature a price signal it has never had, and giving investors, corporates and individuals a direct, transparent way to fund it.

What Is a Biodiversity Credit? (In Plain English)

Think of a biodiversity credit as a receipt - a formal, independently verified record that a specific, measurable conservation outcome actually happened. That could be the documented recovery of an indicator species, a measurable improvement in habitat condition, or a verified reduction in a specific ecological threat.

To be credible, a credit needs four things:

• A defensible baseline — solid evidence of what the ecosystem looked like before
• A transparent methodology — a clear, repeatable way of measuring change
• Independent verification — outside experts checking the work, not just the people doing it
• A public registry — so the same outcome can never be sold twice

We want to be upfront: biodiversity credits are a young market. Unlike carbon credits, there's no single global standard yet, and verification practices still vary between providers. We think that's exactly why the integrity of the data behind a credit matters so much - and it's the reason we're building this pilot the careful way, rather than rushing a finished product to market.

Why Crees? Fifteen Years of Data You Can't Fake

The single biggest barrier to entry in biodiversity credits is data. Anyone can promise conservation outcomes - proving them takes years of unglamorous, consistent fieldwork. This is what the Crees Foundation for Manu (CFFM) brings to the table, and what makes this pilot possible:

• 15 years of continuous, multi-taxa ecological monitoring from the Manu Learning Centre — tracking indicator species like birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles and lepidoptera, seven days a week, for over a decade and a half.
• 20 years of documented, continuous stewardship of the 643-hectare private reserve in the Manu buffer zone.
• 60+ peer-reviewed articles, books and field guides, produced with academic partners including the University of Glasgow and universities across Peru — making Crees the third most-published biodiversity research organization in the Peru! 
• Hundreds of Peruvian biologists and international volunteers trained in the field, building local scientific capacity alongside the data itself.

Each species we monitor tells us something specific: large arboreal mammals like spider monkeys signal low hunting pressure; amphibian populations reveal water quality. It's this granular, long-running picture of ecosystem health that makes a genuinely high-integrity credit possible - not a snapshot, but a fifteen-year trend line.

Pioneering Biodiversity Finance in Peru — First, and Transparently

Our pilot - covering the 643-hectare private reserve in the Manu buffer zone - is on track to become Peru's first voluntary biodiversity credit. No credit of this kind has ever been issued in the country before.

We're working with Nat5, an independent, Latin America-based certifier with certified projects already running in Mexico and Europe. Nat5 has audited our monitoring data and is finalizing the certified credit volume, with independent validation to follow before any credit is issued. Being honest about where the process stands is part of doing this properly - we'd rather bring you into a pilot that's still being built with rigour than oversell a finished product that isn't.

That means when you back this campaign, you're not buying into something already proven and mainstream - you're getting in at the very beginning. You'll be among the first people anywhere to hold a stake in Peru's first biodiversity credit, backing a model we hope other biodiverse rich areas - and eventually, on their own terms, Manu's indigenous communities - can build on.

Where Your Money Goes

Funds raised through this campaign directly expand Crees' biodiversity monitoring at the Manu Learning Centre and, over time, across the wider Manu landscape. Specifically, your support helps:

• Fund daily biodiversity monitoring and the training of Peruvian biologists, sustaining a programme that has run uninterrupted for 15 years.
• Produce educational materials, scientific articles, books and field guides from ongoing multi-taxa research.
• Publish Crees' long-term monitoring data on GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility - an open, international repository. Tropical regions like Manu are chronically under-researched compared with Europe and North America; putting this dataset online lets researchers worldwide draw on it, and helps correct that imbalance.
• Tropical Ecology Research - Tropical biodiversity hold its secret tightly, Crees will continue to reveal them to the world through rigorous science. We have over 60 published scientific articles and guides.
• Expand this pioneering financial model across the wider Manu landscape — scaling biodiversity credits beyond this pilot to other lodges and operators in the region, and, over time and only with each community's free, prior and informed consent, to Manu's indigenous communities, including Shipitieri, Diamante, Amarakeari, Palotoa, Queros and Santa Rosa de Huacaria. Indigenous peoples make up around 5% of the world's population but manage roughly a quarter of its land, including a third of the planet's remaining intact forest - land where biodiversity loss is consistently lower than the global average. Supporting the people already doing this work is central to where we want this model to go.

The Miniatures: Art That Funds Conservation

To bring this campaign to life, Crees has partnered with British artist Venetia Higgins to create 123 original framed miniatures - medieval-style paintings, each inspired by a charismatic species found at the Manu Learning Centre. Every miniature is one of a kind, representing a single species from the reserve.

Every miniature is imbued with a real biodiversity credit, generated directly from Crees' 15-year long-term dataset - so each artwork you receive carries a genuine, data-backed conservation outcome, not just a symbolic one.

Each miniature you receive comes paired with a real conservation contribution: 50% of every sale directly supports biodiversity conservation in the Peruvian Amazon. £75 of that is imbued in the artwork itself as a biodiversity credit contribution, with the remainder donated to the Crees Foundation for Manu.

If the originals sell out, prints of the miniatures will also be available - or you can support the campaign by purchasing a biodiversity credit contribution on its own.

About the Artist

Venetia Higgins is a British artist and curator whose work sits at the intersection of history, craftsmanship and the natural world. She studied History of Art at the University of Edinburgh, worked in the arts and conservation sector, and later trained at the Royal Drawing School (2022).

Alongside her own painting practice, Venetia curates a programme of thematic exhibitions at The Gallery at Green & Stone - including Curios, Medieval Relics, Anima Mundi and Folklore, Myths & Legends - bringing together artists working across traditional craft and material culture.

Her paintings often incorporate fragments of historical material, made in collaboration with a book conservator who sources manuscript leaves and a specialist framer working with reclaimed antique timbers. The result is intimate, richly detailed work that reinterprets historical craftsmanship through a contemporary lens - a fitting form for artworks that also carry a living conservation outcome.

• Website: www.venetiahiggins.co.uk
• Instagram: @venetiahiggins

The Rewards

• 🎨 An original framed miniature — one of only 123, each hand-painted and unique.
• 🖼️ A print of a miniature — for those who miss out on an original.
• 🌿 A Nat5 biodiversity credit — a direct, verifiable stake in Peru's first voluntary biodiversity credit.

Join Us

This is a chance to back something genuinely new: the first voluntary biodiversity credit in Peru, built on fifteen years of real data and twenty years of real stewardship, in one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. Whether you choose an original miniature, a print, a credit, or a cap - you're funding daily monitoring work in the Manu rainforest, and helping prove that nature can pay for its own protection.

Be part of the first chapter of biodiversity finance in Peru.

Shipping

UK and international shipping are included in the sale price.

Customs and Import Taxes

Please note that if your order is being shipped outside the United Kingdom, you may be liable for customs duties, import taxes or other fees imposed by the destination country. These charges are the responsibility of the buyer and are not included in the purchase price. If you are unsure whether these charges may apply, please contact your local customs office before placing your order.

Dispatch

All 123 artworks will be exhibited together at The Gallery at Green & Stone, SW3 6HU, from 3–9 of September 2026.

Orders will be dispatched after the exhibition, from mid-September 2026.

Returns

As each artwork is an original, one-of-a-kind piece, all sales are final and we are unable to accept returns or exchanges for change of mind. If your artwork arrives damaged or is not as described, please contact us within 7 days of delivery so that we can resolve the issue.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 24th November 2026 at 9:54am