Is Nature Conservation the Future of Development Aid?

As global geopolitics becomes increasingly difficult to decipher, the idea of the end of development aid — and perhaps of “development” itself — is gradually taking hold. In this context, a hypothesis is emerging: that development aid is being replaced by financing for global environmental action — nature conservation, climate change adaptation, and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. The validity of this hypothesis, however, depends on the perspective adopted.

The financial data suggest that this substitution should be seen in perspective. Certainly, more is spent worldwide each year on climate-related activities (around USD 1300 billion) than on development (USD 255 billion). However, of this total, only around USD 26 billion is spent on adaptation to climate change in the Global South — partially overlapping with development aid projects and extending their logic and methods. The bulk of adaptation funding remains in the Global North (USD 50 billion), while the vast majority of climate finance is spent on the “energy transition” in the Global North. Moreover, global financing for conservation amounts to no more than USD 154 billion per year, 96% of which is spent in the Global North. Under these conditions, climate- or conservation-related funding cannot replace development aid, although it may partially redefine its scope.

Conservation of nature in the countries of the Global South predates development aid. Although its current institutional structure was established in the 1970s, its principles and logic date back to the late 19th century, with the creation of the first national parks and the signing of early international conservation agreements. For a long time, conservation and development were considered separate, even opposing, fields: on one hand, the protection of natural areas, often at the expense of local populations; on the other, the promotion of economic development, poverty reduction, and infrastructure modernization.

Over time, conservation has expanded substantially, both in terms of funding and institutional complexity, particularly through the proliferation of international treaties and the growing role of major conservation NGOs. In parallel, there has been a gradual convergence between conservation and development, for example through the transfer of development paradigms to conservation — in particular, participatory management — while official development agencies such as USAID have expanded their involvement in environmental projects.

Conservation is not a substitute for development aid; rather, it is part of its reconfiguration, offering a new normative justification for international intervention in a context of political and budgetary fatigue.  This convergence forms part of the emergence, since the 1990s, of a “global regime for the governance of environmental public goods”, in which the boundaries between conservation and development have tended to blur in favour of shared instruments — financialisation, partnerships between major NGOs and large corporations, and greater involvement of market actors. Conservation is not a substitute for development aid; rather, it is part of its reconfiguration, offering a new normative justification for international intervention in a context of political and budgetary fatigue. This new regime rests on the assumption that the protection of nature, like development, can be delivered through market mechanisms.

This assumption highlights a major contradiction: the international conservation regime is unable to curb the decline of biodiversity. Put simply, within this regime, the financial instruments deployed — market incentives and financial mechanisms — are often precisely those that contribute to environmental degradation. Grounded in a logic of capital accumulation and growth, this model does not fundamentally question the structural causes of the ecological crisis, nor the inequalities it generates.

One indicator of this contradiction lies in the scale of harmful subsidies — public funding for activities that harm biodiversity — whether for intensive agriculture, fossil fuels, industrial fishing, forestry, or transportation. Estimated by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services at USD 1700 billion per year and, more conservatively, by the OECD at USD 500 billion per year, harmful subsidies massively exceed funding for conservation.

The issue is not whether nature conservation will replace development aid but how to achieve social justice and ecological sustainability in a way that addresses the critical challenges of the 21st century. The recent resurgence of Realpolitik and power dynamics in international relations does not undermine this argument. Environmental crises will not disappear by denying their existence, nor by dismantling the institutions that study them, nor by weakening public environmental policies. Similarly, cuts to development aid — in particular in favour of increased military spending — will not reduce the social, economic, and environmental problems facing the world’s most vulnerable countries. The time has come to rethink North-South transfers — both in environmental policy and development cooperation — not in a logic of substitution, but by questioning the dominant economic and social model. The issue is thus not whether nature conservation will replace development aid but how to achieve social justice and ecological sustainability in a way that addresses the critical challenges of the 21st century.