The Philippines, being one of the 17 megadiverse countries in the world, is teeming with biodiversity which we rely on. To save, restore, and protect what we have, there’s a Philippine Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (PBSAP) in place. But implementing these conservation projects costs a lot of money, and studies by the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) show that there’s a massive gap between what’s needed and what’s available, PhP 24 billion and PhP 5 billion, respectively.
One of the finance solutions being tested by BIOFIN to raise additional resources for the priority projects of the Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is a mobile gaming application.
With about 30 million gamers in the Philippines, where roughly 12 million annually are spending around PhP 700 (USD 13) each on game downloads and in-app purchases, there is promising potential for mobile gaming apps to generate revenue for conservation.
In development since 2019, Animal Town is a simple, casual simulation game where the user helps talking animals manage a town and conserve nature.
The free-to-play mobile application aims not only to educate users on biodiversity but also to generate revenue through in-game purchases and ads, and through other marketing efforts by its current NGO partner, Forest Foundation Philippines.
Revenue that comes from in-game purchases and ads will be directed to priority biodiversity conservation projects of DENR-BMB.
UNDP through BIOFIN is in charge of game development, assisting in promotion, and facilitating coordination between partners for the development of a revenue management operations manual.
DENR-BMB provides guidance and technical inputs to support game development and maintenance, assist in the promotion of the game, and work with partners to manage the game revenues anchored on the PBSAP and Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF)
As the current NGO partner of Animal Town, Forest Foundation Philippines supports Animal Town’s promotional, monetization, and grantmaking efforts. The Foundation will oversee the awarding of the initial grants using app gains and create a manual documenting the ideal processes and guidelines followed for revenue and grants management during the pilot test. The gaming application and the entirety of the Animal Town project will subsequently be turned-over to DENR-BMB for continued operations.
The current PBSAP envisions a biodiversity that is restored and rehabilitated, valued, effectively managed and secured, maintaining ecosystem services to sustain healthy, resilient Filipino communities, and delivering benefits to all by 2028.
UNDP, through the BIOFIN programme, teamed up with DENR-BMB in 2014 to articulate the Philippines’ financing needs to achieve this vision of a maintained healthy biodiversity portfolio and ensure effective implementation of the PBSAP. The collaboration enabled the conduct of crucial assessments such as:
Results of these assessments emphasize the need to mobilize additional financing to support the biodiversity agenda of the Philippines.
BIOFIN’s findings guided the creation of the Biodiversity Finance Plan, a plan outlining several financing solutions that may address the gap and generate more resources for biodiversity. Apart from the development of Animal Town, the recommendations for DENR-BMB presented in the Biodiversity Finance Plan include appropriate attribution of biodiversity expenditures, removal of overlaps in biodiversity functions for cost-effective budget executions, eradication of expenditures that continue to or aggravate dissipation of biodiversity resources, paving of groundwork for a responsive policy environment, and enhancing institutional support towards PBSAP monitoring.
