The Conservation
Playbook

Rwanda charges $1,500 for one hour with the gorillas. Namibia put environmental protection in its constitution. In Amboseli, the warriors who once killed lions now name them. In Gorongosa, six lions became two hundred. At Akagera, rhinos now live in a country that twenty-five years ago was synonymous with genocide. African Parks manages twenty-three national parks across thirteen countries and is rewilding two thousand rhinos. These are not similar programmes. They share almost nothing in method, philosophy, scale, or funding model.

What they share is structural: the people who bear the cost of living with wildlife receive direct, tangible, personal benefit from its survival. In Rwanda, communities get 10% of gorilla revenue. In Namibia, conservancy committees distribute hunting and tourism income to members. In Amboseli, warriors get a $100/month salary. In Gorongosa, 1,800 people have jobs. In African Parks sites, $4.9 million flowed to communities in 2024 alone.

The mechanisms vary. The principle does not. When a Maasai warrior loses three cows to a lion and receives nothing in return, he kills the next lion. When the same warrior receives a salary to protect lions, he intercepts the hunting party. This is not ideology. It is arithmetic.

The failures share an equally consistent pattern: money exists in the system but does not reach the people who live with the animals. CAMPFIRE generated revenue but district councils captured it. Trophy hunting generates 1.8% of tourism revenue; 3% reaches communities. South Africa's captive lion industry exists entirely outside the conservation economy. National park gate fees enter treasury accounts and are never seen again by the communities on the park boundary.

Climate and conflict add complexity but they do not change the underlying logic. Namibia's 11-year drought stressed the conservancy system. COVID halved its revenue. A 723-animal cull fed communities. But the system survived because the governance structure existed. Where governance is absent — in the Sahel, in eastern DRC, in Cabo Delgado — wildlife disappears regardless of how much money is spent.

The most uncomfortable insight: the model that produces the best community-level outcomes — Namibia's conservancies — relies partly on trophy hunting, which generates approximately 50% of conservancy benefits. Ninety-one percent of community members oppose a ban. Western donors frequently condition aid on anti-hunting policies. The communities who live with elephants disagree with the people who fund their protection. This contradiction is not going away.

The second most uncomfortable insight: conservation that works costs almost nothing compared to the value it protects. A Lion Guardian costs $1,200 per year to employ. The lion he protects generates $1 million in tourism revenue over its lifetime. The return on investment is 800:1. But the return is captured by lodges and park fees. The investment comes from donors in the United States and Europe. The economics are inverted. Fix the plumbing and the funding problem largely solves itself.