Conservation is chronically underfunded relative to assessments of what is required, and the funding that exists is distributed in ways that reflect donor preference more than ecological priority.
The sources
Government funding, domestic and through international development assistance.
Philanthropy, including a small number of very large foundations.
Individual donations to organisations.
Multilateral funds established under international agreements.
Revenue from protected areas, including tourism and permits.
And, increasingly, private finance through carbon and biodiversity markets.
The gap
Estimates of what is needed to meet international biodiversity targets substantially exceed current spending.
Which is a figure with considerable uncertainty and a consistent direction across estimates.
Comparisons with subsidies that harm biodiversity — agricultural, fisheries and fossil fuel — find those substantially exceed conservation spending, which is the more striking comparison.
The distribution problem
Funding does not correlate well with where threatened biodiversity is.
Which reflects that donor countries fund domestic conservation and choose international recipients on various criteria.
Analyses have found substantial underfunding in several highly biodiverse regions.
Charismatic species
A small number of species attract a disproportionate share of attention and funding.
Which is defended on the basis that they serve as flagships, generating support that benefits their ecosystems.
The evidence for umbrella effects — that protecting one species protects others — is mixed and depends heavily on the species chosen.
Entire taxonomic groups, particularly invertebrates, fungi and plants, receive a very small share relative to their diversity and ecological importance.
Project cycles
Most funding is project-based over a few years.
Which mismatches ecological timescales, where outcomes take decades and monitoring must continue.
It also produces administrative burden, since organisations spend substantial effort on applications and reporting rather than on work.
Core funding, supporting the organisation rather than a project, is what recipients consistently identify as most valuable and is least available.
Overhead
Donors frequently restrict the proportion spent on administration.
Which sounds prudent and systematically underfunds the capabilities — finance, monitoring, evaluation, staff development — that determine whether the work is done well.
The effect has been described as a starvation cycle in nonprofit research, and it is well documented.
Where the money is spent
A substantial share of international conservation funding is spent in donor countries, on staff, administration and consultancy.
Which reduces what reaches the field, and local organisations consistently receive a small share of international funding despite doing much of the work.
Direct funding of local and indigenous organisations has increased and remains a small proportion.
New mechanisms
Debt-for-nature swaps, reducing sovereign debt in exchange for conservation commitments.
Biodiversity credits, which are earlier in development than carbon markets and face similar questions about measurement and additionality.
Payments for ecosystem services, where beneficiaries pay providers directly.
Each has potential and each carries the risks that carbon markets have demonstrated.
For individual donors
Asking what proportion reaches the field, whether local organisations are funded directly, and what outcomes are measured produces informative answers.
Regular giving is worth more than the same total given irregularly, since it allows planning.
And unrestricted donations are worth more than restricted ones, for the reasons above.
Evaluating an organisation
Financial statements are published for registered charities in most jurisdictions.
Which allows spending breakdowns, reserves and executive pay to be checked directly rather than relying on claims.
Programme outcomes, where reported with actual measurement rather than activity counts, distinguish organisations substantially.
Local and international organisations
Large international organisations have reach, technical capacity and fundraising ability.
Local organisations have context, relationships and lower costs, and they remain after projects end.
Which argues for both, and the funding balance has historically favoured the first heavily.
Intermediary funds channelling money to local organisations have developed to address this.
Endowments
Permanent funds generating income for ongoing costs.
Which addresses the mismatch between short funding cycles and long-term management needs.
Conservation trust funds established for specific protected area systems operate this way in several countries.
Volunteering and non-financial contribution
Recording, practical management, campaigning and expertise all contribute where funding is scarce.
Which is substantial in aggregate — volunteer monitoring underpins several national datasets that could not be funded professionally.
Corporate funding
Has grown, with associated concerns about influence and about reputational use of the association.
Which has led some organisations to publish funding policies and to decline funding from certain sectors.
Transparency about who funds what allows readers to assess this themselves, and it is inconsistently provided.
Measuring effectiveness
Conservation has adopted evidence-based approaches slowly relative to medicine.
Databases summarising evidence for specific interventions now exist, allowing practitioners to check what has been tested.
Which is a genuine improvement, and uptake remains limited.
Timescales
Ecological outcomes take longer than funding cycles, which means many projects end before results are measurable.
Which is a structural problem the sector has identified repeatedly and addressed rarely.
Emergency response
Sudden events — disease outbreaks, oil spills, fires — require funding faster than normal cycles allow.
Which is why rapid response funds exist, and their capacity is small relative to the events that occur.