- Conservationists will gather this week for the 5th Business of Conservation Congress in Nairobi, and one talking point there will be focusing finance toward local communities, since that is not only important for achieving equity but also a practical strategy for achieving sustainable and successful outcomes.
- Although community-led conservation programs are genuinely shown to be more efficient, that advantage should also extend to conservation finance.
- But if conservation finance does not shift, and if communities and the organizations that serve them are not brought in as partners even as biodiversity losses continue, the authors of a new op-ed argue that “the trajectory we are on will not change.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
African conservation stakeholders will soon gather for the 5th Business of Conservation Congress in Nairobi, led by African Leadership University. As they build the case for investing in nature-based business, the focus is on markets, enterprise models and blended finance.
However, a crucial question remains: what actually makes conservation investable, resilient and scalable?
Conservation has attracted significant funding, and yet biodiversity loss and climate change continue to accelerate. As new financial tools are discussed and refined, it is also worth reflecting — as a network of conservation funders and doers — on whether the money poured in through the last 30 years has worked; whether we have solved the problems; and whether the current operating model will carry us through the next 30.
The problem is not a lack of commitment or capital; it is a misreading of how conservation works in practice. In our experience, community-led conservation is more efficient and resilient than traditional top-down models because it places authority closer to those who depend directly on the land.
By embedding rules within locally legitimate institutions, it reduces enforcement and transaction costs and strengthens compliance through social trust. A recent analysis of wildlife management areas (WMAs) is a good example. Pastoral communities in Tanzania’s Tarangire ecosystem use WMAs to defend their land and livelihoods, even without full devolution of management rights, showing how conservation can serve local interests while protecting wildlife habitat.
If community-led models are genuinely more efficient, that advantage should be visible in how conservation is delivered on the ground. Evidence suggests it is. Because protection typically accounts for the largest share of conservation costs — roughly 60% — models rooted in local presence, trust and accountability can reduce these expenses dramatically compared to fortress approaches.
Most African national parks spend $800 or more per square kilometer per year on conservation; by contrast, community models can come in at $280-$350, owing to their more constrained budgets. The Makame WMA in Tanzania, supported by the Honeyguide Foundation, is an extraordinary example of this cost difference, operating at just $23 per square kilometer annually, and has reduced poaching by 94% over the past three years. Lower cost has not meant lower performance.
Locally rooted models are also more resilient; they remain stable even amid global financial and political shocks. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw community-managed areas continuing to meet their objectives, with no increase in poaching or habitat destruction despite near-zero funding.
These outcomes are not accidental. They are grounded in basic geography and in the economic reality that most of our remaining biodiversity is found on land governed and used by Indigenous local communities. These groups hold or manage at least a third of the world’s most biodiverse and ecologically intact landscapes. In many cases, these lands experience lower rates of deforestation, poaching and degradation than areas managed under other governance models.
Following that logic, communities are not just beneficiaries; they are the de facto asset managers of natural capital. And the asset is not only the land, wildlife and ecosystems; it also includes the governance systems and the people who manage them.
Why conservation finance still misreads risk
Yet conservation finance has not fully absorbed this reality. Despite communities being stewards of natural capital, funding structures continue to treat them as short-term project implementers rather than long-term custodians essential to value creation. As a result, capital often flows to intermediaries and external institutions, while those who bear the daily responsibility and risks of conserving natural assets remain underresourced. Realigning finance with local stewardship is not only important for achieving equity; it’s also a practical strategy for enabling sustainable conservation outcomes.
The current model, in which the NGO drives the agenda and remains primarily accountable to donors, is no longer tenable. Instead of investing in long-term, locally based institutions capable of managing assets over decades, finance has prioritized short project cycles to deliver quick, reportable outputs. This weakens local ownership and support for conservation, reducing engagement to immediate incentives rather than a longer-term, aligned vision that delivers better outcomes for both people and nature.
Over time, this pattern carries real costs. Short-term projects and financial misallocation erode trust, undermine institutional development and ultimately weaken the confidence of donors and investors themselves. When results do not match expectations, funding disappears.
Governance as a return on investment
Yet when projects fail to scale up or endure, the explanation often defaults to risk — particularly governance risk at the community level. Communities are judged quickly, the “accountability card” is pulled out, and small mistakes trigger reactionary funding cuts rather than an attempt to fix the broken model.
But this framing confuses cause and consequence. Weak governance is not a reason to avoid investment; funding good governance reduces investment risk. Building capacity in this area has been a tick-the-box exercise, but governance requires long-term thinking. And when done right, strong community governance enables credible decision-making, accountability, transparency, enforcement of resource rules, and conflict resolution.
For wildlife economies and other nature-based enterprises to succeed, conservation cannot be treated as a series of isolated projects. It must function as a system — one that embeds governance, legitimacy and local incentives into its operating model from the start.
If conservation finance does not shift, if communities and the organizations that serve them are not brought in as partners in the truest sense of the word, the trajectory we are on will not change. But if investment, capital and decision-making powers are aligned with communities, we will start to see sustainability, legitimacy and scale increase. We will start to see conservation as a viable investment that endures across political cycles and funding shocks.
When communities are equipped to manage the natural assets that local wildlife economies depend on, the benefits spread to everyone: donors interested in impact like NGOs seeking credibility, private investors seeking stable investments, governments seeking development outcomes, and, of course, the local communities whose lands and livelihoods anchor the system.
As we discuss the business of conservation, let’s reframe governance. It’s not overhead — it’s the investment that makes every other investment worthwhile.
José Monteiro is a forest ecologist and executive director of ReGeCom, leading community engagement and governance processes to advance community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) as a conservation and development agenda in Mozambique. Moreangels Mbizah is a conservation biologist with a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Oxford and the founder and executive director of Wildlife Conservation Action in Zimbabwe. Damian Bell is a Tanzanian entrepreneur who founded the Honeyguide Foundation and now focuses on fundraising and communications. Monicah Mbiba is a strategist, facilitator and systems leader with over 15 years’ experience across Africa in conservation, development, academia and social innovation. She is a senior portfolio manager for Maliasili in Southern Africa.
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