The decline of wildlife around the world is unfolding at a pace scientists say threatens the natural systems that sustain life on Earth, hence the Business of Conservation Conference, bringing experts together to address the concerns.
According to the latest data from the Living Planet Index, developed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and its partners, global wildlife populations have fallen by 73 percent between 1970 and 2020. The index, which tracks trends across thousands of vertebrate species, has become one of the most widely used indicators of biodiversity health.
The findings paint a stark picture of ecological decline, with some of the most dramatic losses occurring in regions that host the world’s richest biodiversity.
Wildlife populations in Latin America and the Caribbean have declined by 95 percent, while Africa has recorded a 76 percent drop. The Asia-Pacific region has experienced a 60 percent decline, compared with 39 percent in North America and 35 percent in Europe and Central Asia.
Scientists say the causes are closely tied to human economic activity. Expanding industrial agriculture continues to clear forests for crops and livestock production, while fossil fuel emissions accelerate climate change, which is reshaping habitats on land and in the oceans. Infrastructure expansion, pollution, and the overexploitation of natural resources have further intensified pressures on ecosystems.
Against this backdrop, conservation leaders are increasingly questioning whether existing approaches to protecting nature can keep pace with the scale of the crisis.
These concerns were at the center of discussions during the Business of Conservation Conference 2026, where policymakers, conservation practitioners, and investors explored how new financing models could help address biodiversity loss.
For decades, conservation efforts have relied largely on philanthropic donations, government grants, and eco-tourism revenues. While these funding streams have supported critical conservation initiatives, many experts say they remain too limited and unpredictable to address the scale of the environmental challenge.
“The current model is highly inadequate,” one speaker noted during the conference. “We need funding mechanisms that make nature investable and enable more actors to participate in conservation.”
Many conservation projects operate on tight budgets and short-term funding cycles, even though ecosystem restoration and protection often require sustained investment over decades. As a result, conservation leaders are increasingly exploring ways to connect environmental projects with financial markets.
One initiative highlighted during the conference was the African Buyers Club for Nature Credits, a partnership designed to link investors with conservation projects capable of generating measurable environmental outcomes.
Advocates say the initiative could help create structured investment opportunities in ecosystem protection while ensuring that conservation projects deliver verifiable results.
“We need models that are scalable, sophisticated, and investable,” one participant said. “If conservation is to attract global capital, projects must be structured in ways that investors understand.”
Still, bridging the gap between conservation work and investment markets remains complex.
Experts noted that conservation practitioners often spend significant time explaining ecological models to investors unfamiliar with environmental outcomes or the realities facing communities living near conservation areas.
“There needs to be earlier and more transparent conversations between investors and conservationists,” a conference participant said. “Otherwise, we risk designing financial solutions that do not work on the ground.”
Another emerging concept discussed during the conference is the idea of recognizing ecosystems as economic assets.
Conservation advocate Iman Nyang argued that nature provides immense value that has historically gone unrecognized in financial systems.
“Nature has been working for free for billions of years,” she said. “Yet the services it provides, from clean water to climate regulation, are rarely reflected in economic decision-making.”
Some experts believe that recognizing the economic value of ecosystem services could help mobilize greater investment in conservation while integrating environmental protection more directly into development planning.
According to experts at the Business of Conservation conference, such conflicts affect communities in more than 70 percent of African countries, often resulting in crop destruction, livestock losses, and economic hardship for rural families living near wildlife habitats.
Barbara Chesire of AB Entheos highlighted how insurance mechanisms could offer one possible solution.
“Insurance can compensate affected families quickly and fairly,” she said. “When communities know their losses will be covered, it reduces the pressure that often leads to retaliatory killing of wildlife.”
Such insurance models could help protect rural incomes while promoting coexistence between people and wildlife.
“In many cases,” Chesire added, “insurance becomes a tool that allows people and nature to coexist.”
The conference also highlighted examples of conservation-linked entrepreneurship that connect environmental protection with local economic development.
During the Business of Conservation Conference(BCC), Entrepreneur Graham McCulloch, associated with initiatives in Botswana that link agriculture with craft brewing enterprises, described how local value chains can support both farmers and conservation goals.
“From field to glass, there are opportunities to build value chains that benefit farmers while supporting conservation,” he noted.
Such initiatives illustrate how conservation efforts can extend beyond protected areas into local economies, creating incentives for sustainable land use and community participation.
Despite these innovations, experts emphasized that financial solutions alone cannot resolve the biodiversity crisis.
The primary drivers of ecological decline, including unsustainable consumption patterns, fossil fuel dependence, industrial agriculture, and large-scale resource extraction, remain deeply embedded in global economic systems.
Unless these structural pressures are addressed, conservation gains may remain fragile.
Still, participants at the conference agreed that rethinking how conservation is financed will be essential if efforts to protect biodiversity are to scale up.
With wildlife populations continuing to decline and ecosystems under growing strain, the challenge facing policymakers, investors, and conservation practitioners is not only how to mobilize more resources, but also how to ensure those resources support lasting ecological recovery.
As one participant summarized during the discussions, “If we want nature to survive, we must rethink the way we finance its protection.”
