Navigating crisis and opportunity in conservation funding (commentary)

The past two years have been a dramatic period for conservation funding. The greatest attention has focused on the sudden dissolution of USAID in early 2025, as well as the wider crisis in aid funding as European development budgets also undergo major shifts; total international development aid fell by roughly a quarter last year. These changes are driven by political forces and financial pressures that are only likely to intensify in the coming years. USAID’s dissolution alone removed $1 billion annually from the international environmental funding ecosystem, creating sudden deficits and fiscal crises for organizations large and small, all around the world. While most conservation organizations impacted by these changes in the near term are understandably focused on plugging gaps, keeping programs running, and addressing shortfalls, the bigger picture is reckoning with the ‘end of big aid’ and what the future of global conservation funding looks like.  Beyond the aid crisis and its implications, though, the present moment is also one of dynamic change and new opportunities in global conservation funding. While it cannot replace the sheer volume of lost public development aid, private philanthropic funding for conservation is on the increase. Climate mitigation funding from foundations- of which nature conservation and restoration is now a significant focus- more than doubled between 2020 and 2024, to roughly $6 billion. A great deal of much-needed focus in recent years has been on the lack of conservation and climate funding reaching Indigenous Peoples and local communities, but here there is also significant…This article was originally published on Mongabay