Legal wildlife trade can and does finance conservation

The theme of World Wildlife Day on 3 March 2025 is “Wildlife Conservation Finance: Investing in people and planet.” This event provides an opportunity to explore how legal wildlife trade can and does finance wildlife conservation. Across Africa and other parts of the world, wildlife trade can generate vast sums of funding for wildlife conservation.

Since the launch of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1992, there have been ongoing negotiations about financing the conservation and sustainable use of wildlife. A major focus of these negotiations has been the CBD commitment by developed countries that are parties to the Convention to “provide new and additional financial resources” to developing countries that are signatories. While this focus is on international aid, there are real opportunities for international trade.

With the launch of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) in 2022, the CBD commitment to “raising new and additional resources” now also includes “encouraging the private sector to invest in biodiversity.” This is a positive development, encouraging private sector investment by enabling a return on this investment, for example, through the legal trade in wildlife products.

The CBD Decision 15/23 to “promote the mainstreaming of the sustainable use of biodiversity, particularly that of wild species, into all relevant sectors” further supports wildlife trade. Most importantly, GBF Targets 5 and 9 are an international commitment to ensure that the use, harvesting, and trade of wild species benefits people through “sustainable biodiversity-based activities, products and services.” In short, trading wildlife can directly finance wildlife conservation–something that is already happening. Given this positive development, the theme this year is fitting.  

Key ecotourism destinations generate many millions of US dollars of revenue, much of which goes directly into conserving habitats and wildlife. For example, Kruger National Park in South Africa and Galápagos National Park in Ecuador each generate over $100 million annually. In Kenya’s Masai Mara gate fees alone bring in over $20 million annually, and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe generates over $30 million annually. In the US, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park produces over $2 billion in revenue! These few examples show that well-managed conservation areas – both public and private – can and do generate billions of dollars worldwide for conservation. 

Domestic and international hunting also generates many millions of dollars that directly support conservation. Hunting in Namibia yields $14 million annually, in Botswana $20 million, and in South Africa $800 million. In Canada, the annual revenues are $3 billion. In both the United Kingdom and France, the annual income from hunting, trapping, and shooting is $4 billion. In the US, the hunting industry generates $27 billion annually. 

In addition to the revenues earned from ecotourism and hunting, conserving wild species also yields a key service in carbon sequestration. The global nature-based carbon offsets industry now generates about $100 billion annually. Projects to store carbon by restoring and conserving wild plants in terrestrial forests and marine ecosystem systems include mangrove carbon projects in Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal and other coastal regions of Africa.

Wildlife trade includes not only services like photographic and hunting tourism and carbon storage but also goods from harvesting and trading wild animals, plants, and fungi. The annual income from the legal trade in wild species is $220 billion. Most interestingly, significant revenues are generated from the legal trade in endangered wild species regulated under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) – $2 billion annually for animal species and $9 billion annually for plant species. 

The marine fishing industry—which includes commercial and recreational fishing—also generates about $500 million annually in South Africa, $800 million in Ghana, and $1 billion in Mauritania. Globally, wild-harvested marine fisheries generate $160 billion, although the sustainability of marine fisheries is an area of ongoing international concern.

Wildlife-based tourism, hunting, carbon sequestration, foraging and fishing together bring in many billions of dollars. As most of this trade is sustainable, it directly finances the conservation of wildlife and their habitats. Hence, wildlife trade also contributes directly to the GBD commitment to scaling up area-based conservation. Enhancing the sustainability of this trade will further align the financial flows from this trade with wildlife conservation.

With the prospects for expansion of the wildlife economy across the African continent, we can expect revenues from the sustainable use and trade of African wild species to grow substantively. This means that Africa will be able to self-finance the conservation of its wildlife by trading wildlife products across the continent and internationally. Trade, not aid, will ensure sustainable financing for Africa’s wildlife. With World Wildlife Day 2025 serving as a platform for “innovative financial solutions for wildlife conservation” in Africa, these solutions include liberalising legal and sustainable trade in wild species across the continent. 

Originally published in the Cape Argus on 04 Mar 2025. See here.

For more AWEI outputs for WWD 2025, please click here.