Conservationists warn of billion-dollar shortfall in protection programmes

Conservationists have warned that the budget shortfall for effectively maintaining the world's protected areas for endangered species is estimated at around $2.5 billion annually.

According to Conservation International (CI), the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science (CABS) at CI, the University of Cambridge and BirdLife International, maintaining and expanding global protection areas for threatened plant and animal species would cost around $23 billion a year over the next 10 years. Currently, global funding is just $7 billion per year, with less than $1 billion each year spent in the developing world, where the greatest wealth of biodiversity exists, the groups claim.

The figures, released at the 5th World Parks Congress, revealed that thousands of protected areas worldwide, most particularly those in the developing world, suffer from a "chronic lack of funding", resulting in a shortage of staff, ranger stations, communications equipment, vehicles and other basic infrastructure.

The shortfall is leading to catastrophic results for many of the world's protected areas, the groups say. In West Africa, for example, funding of many parks is so poor that areas once rich with elephants, hippos and monkeys "are now empty". In Latin America, protected areas have been cleared for agriculture, and in Asia, tigers, monkeys and crocodiles are being poached for illegal sale, the groups claim.

"This massive budget shortfall means that too often, protected areas have ineffective and insufficient management, resulting in the progressive degradation of resources these areas were established to protect," said John Hanks, Director of Southern Africa Transfrontier Conservation Areas for CI.

"The acceleration of human encroachment is transforming vast natural areas, and species are still teetering on the brink of extinction - in the very places designed to provide them safe refuge."

At last year's World Summit on Sustainable Development, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced $36 million in newly allocated money over three years to protect the forests of Africa's Congo Basin, a sum that conservationists say will have a major impact on-the-ground.

(gmcg)