It’s time for rich countries and philanthropists to directly fund National Parks indigenous territories before we lose them for good.

By Jeff Morgan

A handful of rangers and a broken-down truck is hardly sufficient to protect the world’s remaining endangered wild animals and tropical forests from the organized, lethal, and relentless threats posed by global poaching syndicates and logging gangs.

However, for the remaining rhinos, orangutans, and tigers in national parks and indigenous lands across Asia, an underfunded, motley band of park rangers often represents their best chance of survival and humanity's sole hope of preserving Earth's most magnificent beasts and spectacular wild places.

This is the sorry state of nature conservation in 2024. Pitiful amounts of money are going to the park wardens on the front lines of an unrelenting war against poaching and illegal logging, which has pushed many animals toward extinction and damaged tropical forest cover, even within supposedly protected places.

Animals need to fear not only poachers and loggers, but also a conservation industry that has become corporatized and overly cautious. Officials are more inclined to travel to international conferences and advocate for ambitious targets like safeguarding 30 percent of the world by 2030, rather than tackling the challenging task of safeguarding the remaining 3 percent of wilderness in developing nations, many of which are national parks.

At Global Conservation, we spend on average US$100,000 to US$200,000 a year to help protect a national park. This includes providing the equipment rangers need to do their job. We implement global park defense and community protection initiatives to stop poaching and illegal land clearance. They involve an integrated system that uses local people, technology, and training.

We protect national parks that prevent the cutting of trees or the killing of animals, and we help establish indigenous territories that foster the prosperity of both forests and wildlife alongside people. This results in the protection of tree cover and animal populations can rebound.

It isn’t rocket science, but almost nobody is funding this work. Most donations for conservation originate in the United States and Europe and stay there. Many large international NGOs have developed cold feet about protecting national parks in developing countries.

Some of this is attributable to a 2019 Buzzfeed investigation that found WWF had funded park officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nepal who committed serious rights abuses against local people.

The unintended consequence of that investigation is that the billion-dollar NGOs that used to fund park protection now prefer the less risky job of advocacy and marketing. The animals and trees are defenseless as a result.

We will soon lose the last bastions of intact forest and wildlife habitats if we don't implement a new model to protect tropical rainforests and sanctuaries worldwide. Many countries—including Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia—are on track to lose 10–20 percent of their intact tropical rainforests during the next 10 years at current rates of deforestation.

By Global Conservation’s estimates, it would cost about US$2 billion per year to effectively protect the more than 1,000 national parks and indigenous territories under siege, as well as their buffer zones and connected ecosystems, comprising some 80.9 million hectares (200 million acres).

Compared to the numerous ambitious proposals put forth by the United Nations or large NGOs, investing US$2 billion annually is a cost-effective solution. By providing sustained annual funding based on strict protection milestones, combined with the proven systems, technology, and training for each threatened national park and indigenous territory, we can stop the burning, clearing, mining, logging, and poaching to save species from extinction and maintain vital carbon sinks.

First COP26 pledge: world leaders agree to end deforestation by 2030 

If we don’t quickly create a new direct funding model for nature conservation focused on existing national parks and indigenous territories—especially in the Congo and the Amazon—greedy mining, logging, and cattle companies will soon cut down our last intact tropical forests and most important sanctuaries for critically endangered species.

Fortunately, there is hope. The new US Foundation for International Conservation, promoted by Senators Lindsey Graham and Chris Coons, is a bipartisan step in the right direction. It complements funding from USAID, the State Department, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to save forests in developing countries. New technologies also help, such as satellite CCTV for park surveillance, EarthRanger for park monitoring and protection, Starlink for connectivity, and even bitcoin for quick payments. 

We are down to our last 10 percent of intact tropical forests and endangered wildlife such as rhinos, tigers, and African forest elephants. It is time for rich countries and philanthropists to step up and get the money flowing directly to national parks and indigenous territories across the world. Our last forests, along with the people and animals that inhabit them, demand nothing less.

About the Author
Jeff Morgan is the Executive Director of Global Conservation, the only international NGO focused solely on protecting endangered national parks and indigenous territories in developing countries. Global Conservation works with national governments and indigenous peoples to achieve “no kill, no cut” protection in the face of increasing poaching, illegal logging, and land clearance.