Debt-for-nature swaps are back to the forefront of the international stage. Promoted as being an innovative solution to reduce the debt of countries of the South while financing the preservation of nature, those mechanisms have been put forward over the last years, particularly at the COP 28 in Dubai. While they are not new — the first agreement of this kind was signed in Bolivia in 1987 —, recently they have been used more and more. In the past months Belize, Ecuador, Mozambique, Gabon and the Seychelles have agreed to this kind of swap. Yet debt-for-nature swaps raise acute concerns about their efficiency and their consequences for the respect of human rights. While these projects in no way guarantee effective protection measures, neither do they address the problem of excessive public debt. As the German NGO Erlassjahr has clearly shown, the swaps, which are often presented as debt reduction or even cancellation, are not. The government uses the funds received to buy back part of its debt from creditors at market prices. […]