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The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework envisages an increasing reliance on large-scale private finance to fund biodiversity targets. We warn that this may pose contradictions in delivering conservation outcomes and propose a critical ongoing role for direct public funding of conservation and public oversight of private nature-related financial mechanisms.The repeated failure to achieve global biodiversity targets is often attributed to a global biodiversity funding gap 1 . Investment in nature is allegedly 5-7 times lower than required to reverse biodiversity loss 2 . A range of financial tools have been designed to incentivise private funds into the delivery of conservation outcomes 3 , and sustainable finance and policy circles now emphasise the need to 'mainstream' these nature-related financial instruments to close the alleged financing gap. Scaling up the investible appeal of nature-related asset classes aims to mobilize financial flows of mainstream institutional investors, including asset managers, pension funds, and insurers 4,5 . This view explicitly prioritises the financing role of private institutional investors over that of governments, whose role would be more to improve the risk-return characteristics of private biodiversity investments 2,4-7 . In our view, these policy narratives have underplayed the inherent conflict between achieving ecological outcomes and attracting large-scale financial flows. Here, we argue that successful nature-related investments will require more, rather than less, of a role for the public sector.The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), agreed at the Convention on Biological Diversity's COP15 in December 2022, embodies an increasing reliance on large-scale private finance. The agreement proposes more ambitious plans for private than for public financing: high-income countries agreed to increase public biodiversity-related spending in low-income countries to USD $30bn/year by 2030, while 'mobilising' at least USD $200bn/year primarily through 'leveraging private finance, promoting blended finance… [and] stimulating innovative schemes such as… green bonds, biodiversity offsets and credits' 8 .