UK aid cuts will cause untold damage, wildlife charities warn – as they fear for future of key programmes
UK conservation charities key to protecting wildlife around the world have warned that the government’s slashing of the international aid budget will have a dramatic impact – severely damaging a lifeline for fragile ecosystems as costs and cut and leaving many organisations fearing for the future.
With the UK cutting its overall foreign aid budget from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI), data shows support for nature and conservation is set to receive a particularly stark hit worth hundreds of millions of pounds. While the government has said it is committed to protecting nature and battling the climate crisis, The Independent has uncovered evidence that cuts are already having a devastating blow on conservation programmes.
One organisation is the African People and Wildlife (APW) charity, which carries out conservation work in Tanzania. The charity has two projects running this year that were “generously funded” by UK aid, according to Laly Lichtenfeld, co-founder of APW.
The first of these projects supports conservation activities on Lake Natron, which is a critical ecosystem home to vast flamingo breeding grounds, where APW carries out activities such as grassland restoration and sustainable grazing support in order to help people live in balance with the landscape and to adapt to the changing climate. The second project is about providing practical tools for people to manage human-wildlife conflict, particularly in relation to elephants and large carnivores.
Funding for the Lake Natron project came to a close at the end of June 2025, while the second project is due to run out later this year. Both were funded by the UK government-backed £10.6 million Darwin Initiative, which has supported some 52 projects globally. However, it is not currently open for new funding rounds due to uncertainty around funding. Being left with a gap in funding that might not be replenished, says Lichtenfeld, is highly damaging for APW’s work.
“When aid cuts like we are experiencing happen, you’re not just dismantling a given project. You’re dismantling an entire ecosystem of support for both wildlife and a huge number of African communities,” says Lichtenfeld.
Grants that the charity now expects to come in this year are “probably about 50 per cent less than last year”, Lichtenfeld continues, and the charity is planning to make some major cuts to activities on the ground. “We’re doing everything we can to keep the bare bones of projects going, to keep relationships alive and show the communities they have not been forgotten,” she adds.
Matthew Gould, CEO of major conservation group the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), tells The Independent that expected cuts to wildlife and conservation will be highly damaging for both the natural world, and the humans that depend upon it.
“Given that over half of global GDP depends on healthy ecosystems, cutting UK aid for nature would be a false economy,” he says. “The return on investment in nature is high, but the cost of not investing is higher.”
ZSL projects that that have received UK government funding include The Rhino Impact Investment Project, led to the creation the landmark ‘Rhino Bond‘, which is a $150m investment product that enables wealthy investors to directly invest to boost numbers of critically endangered rhinos, while also providing significant local employment in conservation. Another ZSL project is the development of SPOTT, which tracks the environmental pledges of companies producing items which can drive deforestation. Now, more than 50 per cent of palm oil products traded globally now SPOTT-assessed.
Gould was among a number of twelve UK conservation leaders – also including the CEOs of WWF, Greenpeace, and Conservation International – who recently wrote to the UK government suggesting that cuts to conservation would be “a massive own goal”.
“Investment in nature is a strategic, cost-effective pillar of Britain’s global development agenda… UK nature programmes deliver extraordinary returns on modest investment,” they wrote in the letter, which has been shared exclusively with The Independent.
Bird charity the RSPB is another organisation concerned about the impact of UK aid cuts. The charity uses money from the UK aid budget to support its conservation activities in British Overseas Territories like St Helena and South Georgia, which contain some of the world’s rarest seabirds, as well as several penguin colonies.
“The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) UK aid budget has been a lifeline for some of the world’s most fragile ecosystems, helping to halt extinctions and breathe new life into habitats,” says Katie-jo Luxton, RSPB executive director of global conservation.
