Continuing a longtime partnership, Bank of America pledged to further support CI’s work with the oil and gas industry. The funding support will be used to advance the mission of the Energy & Biodiversity Initiative (EBI), which was convened by CELB. The EBI is a coalition of four oil and gas companies and five conservation organizations working at both the global and field level to promote integration of biodiversity conservation practices into oil and gas development.

Alvaro de Molina, president of Global Capital Markets and Investment Banking, presented the check on behalf of the bank at Conservation International’s annual dinner in New York City on May 3, 2005. During the check presentation, de Molina said, “the Bank of America Foundation supports CI’s work to find economic-based solutions to conservation problems. We are proud to play a part in these discussions and support this important program.”

In response to the gift, CI Chairman and CEO, Peter Seligmann, called Bank of America “a leader on environmental issues.” He continued by saying that “such leadership is demonstrated not only through financial support, but also by the bank’s public stance on environmental issues, such as climate change and tough lending standards in regard to forest practices.”

For over a decade, Bank of America has been a major CI supporter, partnering in several projects, such donating proceeds from the Vanishing Species check series (link to everyday action page), the debt-for-nature campaign, which allows select foreign government debts to be forgiven in exchange for support of conservation, as well as providing CI additional support to find economic-based solutions to conservation problems.

The original report produced through the EBI, entitled “Energy and Biodiversity: Integrating Biodiversity Conservation into Oil and Gas Development” contains recommendations and tools for integrating biodiversity conservation into oil and gas development, and is intended to be a practical manual for building biodiversity protection into the entire lifecycle of oil and gas operations, from exploration to decommissioning.

The report and supporting products can be found online at www.TheEBI.org. The bank’s support is being used to translate the report into several languages. To date, the report has been translated into French and Portuguese.

Convened by the Center for Environmental Leadership in Business (CELB), the EBI participants include BP, ChevronTexaco, Conservation International, Fauna & Flora International, Shell, Smithsonian Institution, Statoil, The Nature Conservancy, and IUCN-The World Conservation Union.