African Parks tests a new model for perpetual funding

October 04, 2026

Dear subscriber,

What does it take to turn conservation success into lasting funding? African Parks is testing an approach that could help, but the cost of taking part also deserves a closer look. We examine the promise – and who could be left out.

Treezer Michelle Atieno

The Rob Walton Foundation has given African Parks a grant of $4.6 million to test a new funding model for the protection of nature. The model uses something called Verifiable Nature Units, with each unit representing one square kilometre whose ecological condition is maintained or improved over a period of one year.

  • Parks and conservancies could use this model to secure funding for ongoing conservation. African Parks is exploring the model’s use in community-managed landscapes.

  • Proving results requires satellite data backed by wildlife monitoring on the ground and independent verification. Smaller conservancies need funding and expertise to gather that evidence. It remains unclear how much of the resulting income would be left after covering costs.

  • Our take: Verified results could encourage funders to renew support. But without help paying for measurement, smaller conservancies risk losing out to organisations that can already afford to prove their conservation work is effective… Read more (2 min)

The workforce at African Parks in South Sudan grew by 48% to 34 senior staff over the past year, according to LinkedIn data. Neighbouring Ethiopia recorded a net gain of eight employees. The increases coincide with the organisation developing its operations across a shared wildlife landscape spanning both countries.

  • African Parks is strengthening daily management of Ethiopia’s Gambella National Park after signing a management agreement in December 2024. It also implements an EU-supported conservation project across the Boma-Gambella landscape, connecting its work in Ethiopia and South Sudan.

  • Across Africa, AP’s LinkedIn-recorded workforce grew by 7% to 632 employees, with 87 hires and 51 departures. South Africa recorded the most hires, at 14, followed by South Sudan with 11 and Zambia with 10. Benin added eight hires and Chad seven.

  • Our take: African Parks is adding staff, but IT attrition was more than twice the organisation-wide rate. That deserves attention as the organisation expands its use of AI, mapping and wildlife monitoring systems… Read more (2 min)

Wildlife businesses often defend their activities by pointing to jobs and revenue. Richard Vigne argues that earning money from animals does not establish a conservation benefit. Commercial activity must protect wild populations and their habitats, with benefits also reaching the communities that bear the costs of living alongside wildlife.

  • “Commercial wildlife production is not conservation just because money is made from an animal,” he writes. He reprises the argument that ivory and rhino horn sales must be assessed against the risks of expanding demand and enabling illegal trade.

  • The Executive Director of the School of Wildlife Conservation at the African Leadership University calls for funding that rewards communities for keeping wildlife corridors open and protecting habitat. He accepts that regulated hunting can support conservation where the benefits are proven, while separating necessary elephant population management from the case for selling ivory.

  • Read the full opinion… Read more (2 min)

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Kenya launches a new Mountain Bongo recovery plan

 

Events

🗓️ Join the Conference of Contracting Parties in Tanzania (October 6)

🗓️ Attend the WCN Wildlife Conservation Expo in USA (October 10)

🗓️ Join the Africa Ecosystem Restoration Symposium in SA (October 12)

Jobs

👷 Join BirdLife International as Senior Environment and Safeguards Officer (Kenya)

👷 Become Technical Advisor for Research at RSPB (Sierra Leone)

👷 Join African Parks as Fixed Wing Pilot at Kundelungu National Park (DRC)

Various 

🌳 Kenya courts private investors to close its biodiversity funding gap

🌳 Conservation professionals train to maintain wildlife monitoring technology

🌳 Angola and DRC collaborate against wildlife trafficking in Lobito Corridor

 

Seen on LinkedIn 

Mercy Muendo, a nature and biodiversity risk strategist, says, “Too many ‘global’ biodiversity finance strategies still position Africa primarily as a recipient of funding rather than as a leader in shaping nature-risk solutions.”______________