The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and major research efforts, such as The Dasgupta Report on the Economics of Biodiversity, have centred biodiversity at the heart of our economic system and tasked private markets and enterprise as key agents in halting and reversing the global decline in nature. Financial markets have taken to the challenge of integrating biodiversity into decision-making at pace and with great enthusiasm, generating commitments and frameworks very quickly.

 Academic analysis of these commitments and frameworks is nascent, with some scholars raising concerns over the speed of development embedding principles and actions without proper consideration. Academic inquiry on the many open questions associated with the integration of biodiversity into the financial system is sorely needed.

 This project focuses on the problem of measuring corporate impact on natural systems and creating a financially material and ecologically relevant measure of this impact for equity investors. The Murchison Falls Conservation Area, combining important biodiversity, local communities, and the presence of oil production by a publicly listed company, provides an excellent model system for this work. We aim to quantify the dynamics of this productive socio-ecological system in order to design a globally relevant measure of corporate impact in all landscapes and to inform future governance of the Murchison Fall Conservation Area as Uganda develops.