The money has restored coral reefs in the Seychelles, helped create a national park in Vietnam and turned former guerrillas into tour guides in Colombia. It has established tiger conservation programs, and brought back wildlife to areas decimated by bloody civil unrest.
All those are among the surprising programs affected by the Trump administration’s possible shutdown of the United States Agency for International Development, which, in addition to its other work, has established and maintained overseas national parks and conservation areas.
That role now has an uncertain future. On Thursday, U.S.A.I.D. leaders found out that the Trump administration planned to cut nearly all jobs at the agency and cancel hundreds of grants and contracts. Congressional Democrats say any move to eliminate the agency could be illegal.
National parks have proved to be a stabilizing force for countries around the world, creating local businesses and jobs, protecting fragile ecosystems and kick-starting tourism efforts and other economic opportunities. Communities around parks and preserves often benefit from new or improved health services and schools. The financial benefits may diminish the need for local people to migrate, either internally or overseas.
In Colombia, the Destination Nature Activity ecotourism program preserves forest and natural habitats in six regions previously occupied by guerrillas, paramilitary groups and drug traffickers. The five-year, $40 million program, entirely funded by U.S.A.I.D., supports the operations and infrastructure to attract international travelers. One of the habitats being developed encompasses the Ciudad Perdida, older than Machu Picchu in Peru, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta range.
Activities for visitors include hiking, rafting and birding, often led by former guerrilla fighters who have become guides. Most of these destinations are off the beaten path in a country where tourism is sizzling — Colombia’s visitor numbers reached record highs in 2023, up nearly 25 percent from 2022. Nearly 1.2 million of those international visitors, or more than 26 percent, came from the United States.
U.S.A.I.D. also helped establish the Song Thanh National Park in central Vietnam, funded the creation of marine protected areas in Papua New Guinea and restored coral reefs in the Seychelles. Agency funding was instrumental in creating Gabon’s national parks system and establishing a tiger conservation program in Bangladesh.
After a 16-year civil war in Mozambique wiped out more than 95 percent of the country’s large mammals, U.S.A.I.D. provided support for wildlife and habitat restoration to the 1.6-million-acre Gorongosa National Park. Now it shelters more than 100,000 animals, including elephants, lions, hippos, antelope, painted wolves, hyenas and leopards. In 2023, U.S.A.I.D. grants trained nearly 470 rangers, provided veterinary care and ran local youth education and meals programs. Gorongosa receives just a few thousand visitors a year, but roughly half of them come from the United States.
Greg Carr, an American philanthropist and entrepreneur, is founder of the nonprofit Gorongosa Project, which teams up with the Mozambique government to support the park. He said that funding overseas national parks is in the United States’ national interest.
“There are four international criminal enterprises that are closely entwined: human trafficking, drug trafficking, arms trafficking and exotic wildlife trafficking. It is often the same groups involved in all four,” he said.
U.S.A.I.D. funding to Gorongosa amounts to $5 million a year, to which Mr. Carr then contributes $7 million and fund-raises the rest to reach the park’s annual operating budget of $25 million. “Thus the U.S.A.I.D. money is leveraged fivefold,” he said.
Jay L. Knott, a former U.S.A.I.D. foreign service officer who has worked in Gorongosa and other parts of the world, said U.S.A.I.D. has played an important, early role in tourism efforts, “setting the table” to create a foundation through the early conservation of habitats, the development of a revenue model and the training of local staff. For example, U.S.A.I.D. years ago provided core funding that kick-started the restoration of Ghana’s former and dilapidated slave forts. They are now a major tourist draw.
Successful tourism destinations require vision, collaboration and engagement, Mr. Knott said. U.S.A.I.D.’s seed investments in parks often catalyzed and leveraged national governments, philanthropies and investors to follow suit. The loss of U.S.A.I.D. would affect the viability of current parks as well as prospects for future national parks.
“That means lost opportunities for conservation, tourism, U.S. business investment opportunities, local communities more prone to instability and terrorist influence — all of it,” he said.
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