Conservation Funding Faces Crisis as USAID Shuts Down, but Philanthropic Support Grows

The past two years have seen a sharp contraction in global conservation finance. In early 2025, USAID was dissolved, removing $1 billion a year from the international environmental funding pool and creating sudden deficits for organizations worldwide. At the same time, total international development aid fell by roughly a quarter last year, driven by political shifts and budget cuts in Europe and beyond. While many conservation groups are scrambling to plug gaps and keep programs running, the sector is also confronting the broader reality of an “end of big aid” era. Amid this turmoil, private foundations have stepped in, more than doubling climate‑mitigation and nature‑conservation funding between 2020 and 2024 to about $6 billion. Yet the rise in philanthropic money has not fully addressed the persistent shortfall of resources reaching Indigenous peoples and local communities.