World Wildlife Fund

Iguaçu National Park in Brazil
© WWF-Canon / Michel Gunther

One of the greatest challenges facing global conservation is the overwhelming lack of resources for funding long-term, comprehensive programs. This challenge is all the more daunting as WWF and its partners pioneer large-scale, ecoregion-based conservation efforts that demand correspondingly large investments. In Brazil, for example, the ongoing effort to create new protected areas and improve the management of existing ones is expected to cost $280 million. That level of investment is far beyond the means of developing countries, which in many cases are struggling to meet debt obligations and provide basic services to their citizens.

WWF has a long and well-established history of developing innovative conservation finance tools. In the 1980s, we were one of the pioneers of the concept of the debt-for-nature swap. Since then, we have played a vital role in debt-for-nature swaps that have converted an estimated $200 million owed by debtor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America into new sources of funding for forest preservation and the protection of endangered wildlife.

In 1991, WWF introduced the developing world's first conservation trust fund in the small Himalayan country of Bhutan. Our initial investment of $1 million seeded a fund that now totals more than $35 million and is being used to train Bhutanese scientists and park guards, develop alternative livelihoods, and protect and replant forests. WWF has been involved in about a third of the more than 40 conservation trust funds established since. These trusts attract large sums from the donor community and help unite local people, nongovernmental organizations, and government agencies behind long-term conservation programs.

WWF further engages the private sector by developing new financial mechanisms that are both attractive to businesses and effective conservation tools. WWF helped design and establish the first conservation corporation of its kind — the Asian Conservation Company — in the developing world, as well as user-funded conservation programs across the globe.