Why Africa’s Wilderness Needs Investors, Not Just Donors
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has long been a pillar of support across Africa, underwriting humanitarian relief, health systems, and environmental protection. Its recent withdrawal of funding is more than a budgetary cut—it is a stress test of how Africa, and the world, value natural capital.
Africa holds around a quarter of global biodiversity. Its forests, savannahs, and reefs regulate rainfall, absorb carbon, and sustain livelihoods across the continent and beyond. Yet as aid recedes, the model underpinning these ecosystems is cracking.
The humanitarian effects are immediate. In Kenya alone, USAID once contributed over US$600 million annually, nearly half directed to food security and health. As flows declined, malaria and cholera outbreaks have surged, while four years of failed rains—the worst drought in 40 years—have left millions food insecure. When aid vanishes, survival comes first: forests are cleared for charcoal, wildlife hunted for food, and fragile rangelands ploughed.
The ecological fallout is just as imminent. Tourism linked to Kenya’s natural assets contributes 8.6% of GDP and 7.9% of formal employment. Community conservancies, which collectively protect millions of hectares across Africa, face growing financing gaps. For example, in Amboseli, drought killed over 6,000 wild animals across 20 species in a single year—the highest losses ever recorded. The Nature Conservancy estimates Kenya alone needs an extra US$200 million a year to meet biodiversity targets.
This is not a call to return to dependency. As African leaders often argue, philanthropy has fostered reliance, not resilience. USAID’s retreat exposes the urgent need to rewire conservation finance.
Promising models exist. The Africa Conservation & Communities Tourism (ACCT) Fund blended philanthropy and private capital to rescue safari operators during COVID-19. In 2023 alone, it channelled US$8.4 million to conservation areas and US$10.8 million to communities, sustaining nearly 12,000 livelihoods. Beyond tourism, new financial instruments are being tested—from Corporate Biodiversity Bonds to Payments for Ecosystem Services—that turn ecological value into investable returns.
The lesson is clear: Africa’s wilderness cannot survive just on donor cycles or tourist seasons. Conservation must be integrated into capital markets, where protecting ecosystems generates durable income for both people and nature. Projects like Tofauti’s 10% Fence Plan demonstrate how even modest investments reduce crop losses by over 75% and increase protected land by 70%. But without external support, scaling these solutions remains problematic.
The Tofauti Foundation has fast become a specialist in coexistence spaces, with continued growth in human populations there is fast becoming competition for wilderness areas that previously were untouched. This is not just on land but also within seascapes. Crabs Alive is Tofauti’s first blue project on the coast of Kenya to support artisanal fishermen and women who have depended on the Indian Ocean for centuries. Unfortunately, due to the pelagic fish species being affected so heavily by trawlers and overfishing these communities have had to survive as best they can on smaller fish or crustaceans. This is not changing and therefore juvenile species are being harvested through desperation, and we embarked on a mission to provide a community out grower programme to mitigate the harvesting from the wild and start to provide sustainable incomes and harvesting from locally grown and managed crab ponds.
Innovation in all our projects is key to their success and therefore adapting future proofing concepts to ensure that previously provided ponds from other projects can be made into mud crab safe havens. Food substances are also grown specifically for crab growth, a simple hybrid Talapia species which can survive in saline water has been bred so that they circulate above the crabs, which are then caught in small nets cast along the top and provided to the crabs at a desired ratio. We choose to help foster knowledge and enable a different standard of life for the communities on the coast of Kenya. While this does not transform lives continentally, it does provide immediate economic stability for communities which had previously struggled.
The stakes extend far beyond Africa. Losing biodiversity here undermines global climate stability. If forests in the Congo Basin fall or if East African rangelands collapse, the world loses carbon sinks, rainfall regulators, and food systems. Treating conservation finance as discretionary is no longer viable—it is planetary risk management.
What comes next must be a pivot to resilience, not dependence. That means mobilising ESG capital, scaling carbon and biodiversity markets, and ensuring communities at the frontline see tangible returns for protecting nature.
Africa is not just a victim of donor retreat. It is a laboratory for the future of conservation finance. The question is whether the world will recognise that in time.
Crista Cullen MBE | Founder