Article by : Emese Maczko
Published on 8 December 2025
What happens when conservation can no longer rely on government budgets alone? Uganda may offer a compelling new blueprint that any nation can replicate.
2025 was a year when even America’s iconic national parks were not immune to the impact of faltering government funding.
Earlier this year, widespread staff layoffs strained basic operations, while months later, a 43-day government shutdown dealt a second blow. Both events revealed the same truth: public lands suffer when funding and operations are unstable.
That vulnerability is not unique to the United States. Countries around the world face similar financing pressures.
As argued earlier, tourism is often the only mechanism that makes conservation financially feasible when government budgets fall short. It can provide steady revenue to sustain local economies, field-ready resources for jobs and on-the-ground presence for protection.
“The thought of no tourism is a terrifying one for the conservation of habitat,” said David Guthrie, founder of A Tent With A View, in a previous interview when asked what would happen if everyone stopped travelling.
Now, Uganda is testing a new partnership model between the government and a private tour operator that could serve as a compelling blueprint for others to adapt.
To understand how it works in practice, I interviewed via video Charles Tumwesigye, director of field operations at Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), a semi-autonomous government agency established in 1996 and Jonathan Wright, co-founder of WildPlaces, the tour operator behind this first-of-its-kind collaboration.
Uganda today protects over 9 million acres of conservation land managed and operated by UWA. The network accounts for roughly 16% of Uganda’s territory, including about 2.1 million acres across ten national parks and an additional 3.7-3.7 million acres in wildlife and forest reserves.
The country is also facing intense conservation pressures primarily driven by the illegal bushmeat trade, which Wright described in the interview as “the silent killer.”
According to him, poachers can set “100 to 140 snares a day,” often staying inside protected areas for weeks at a time.
The financial incentive is strong as commercial poaching is considered a lucrative business in Uganda, said Wright, since “Ugandans prefer game meat, and they will pay a premium price for that, even over beef.”
Wright estimated that in Murchison Falls alone, the commercial bushmeat trade could be worth $35 to $40 million.
He said poaching is the largest culprit, “decimating the parks” and complicating UWA’s efforts to protect everything from pangolins and lions to elephants.
And the impact of that on predators has been devastating. He noted that a small group of 3-4 highly skilled poachers killed 50 lions in about five years.
But managing this vast system is costly. Tumwesigye told me that conservation requires constant financing for “law enforcement, vehicles, ranger support, salaries, food rations, and ranger posts.”
He also noted that government funding rarely covers these needs, particularly in remote areas that attract few visitors. Some parks “will not even receive 100 tourists a year,” he said, yet UWA must still deploy staff, patrol the land and maintain infrastructure.
According to Tumwesigye, the financial gap is persistent and structural. UWA relies heavily on tourism revenue, but many of the landscapes most in need of protection generate little of it.
That imbalance is precisely where Uganda began looking for a new, more resilient model.
Wright explained that Uganda historically relied on bilateral aid from institutions such as the World Bank and the European Union. When those funding streams slowed, wildlife suffered.
This model, he added, was built to solve one of UWA’s most significant challenges: the lack of consistent, flexible, field-ready funding for conservation.
The idea for this new model emerged from a presidential initiative that invited select private-sector operators to help strengthen conservation across Uganda.
“The president basically told us to go out and look around all the national parks and find solutions,” he explained.
His team surveyed the country and chose some of the most remote, least supported landscapes with no infrastructure, no history of tourism and limited capacity for active management: Toro-Semliki Wildlife Reserve, the southern sector of Murchison Falls National Park and Kyambura Wildlife Reserve.
Wright emphasized that his goal was not to replace UWA but to reinforce its operations. The solution was to join forces to deploy the privately raised funds directly to frontline needs. “We didn’t want to usurp their authority,” he said. “We wanted to work in conjunction with them.”
After a series of meetings with UWA, government leaders and NGO boards, the WildPlaces Conservation Foundation began operating just over a year ago.
To ensure accountability and credibility, the Foundation assembled a high-level board that includes Rt. Hon. Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda, the former prime minister, Her Worship Gladys Kamasanyu, chief magistrate in the Uganda Wildlife Court that oversees wildlife crime and Ms. Priscilla Butagira, special presidential assistant, alongside conservation experts from Uganda and the UK.
“We don’t pay ourselves salaries. We don’t make money out of the trust,” Wright said. “Everything is targeted at the ground to support UWA’s operations.”
In its first year, the Foundation raised $1 million from tourism activities (including $25 per guest per night spent at WildPlaces Lodges) to finance practical, high-impact needs.
The Foundation has already built six new ranger posts and upgraded a seventh across the three protected areas. It has supplied the teams with tractors equipped with blades and all-terrain vehicles to support ranger operations and field transport. The funds also provided new anti-poaching gear for ranger teams and smartphones to support mapping and monitoring.
Wright has already seen measurable results.
Lions are showing early signs of recovery, with Wright estimating “perhaps as many as 35 cubs.” He believes “the prides are settling” and their behavior is “normalizing.”
He also noted a dramatic shift in elephant safety. “Last year, we had 11 snared elephants in that area. This year, we have not seen one.”
In Murchison Falls, where 70 poacher camps once lined the Nile, he noted that they are “now not finding any more in those sections,” thanks to active patrol.
Wright described Uganda’s ecological potential in striking terms, saying, “Uganda would be second to none.” Thanks to its rainfall, green grasslands, mountains and rivers, the country has some of the highest biodiversity found in African national parks.
In his view, Uganda “should be thick with big predators, thick with elephant and everything.”
But wildlife is resilient and can rebound quickly if protected, he explained. “We can almost double the population of many species every year as long as we eradicate the core problem, poaching for meat.
“Elephants, however, need far more time, 15 to 20 years to forgive us for what’s been done to them,” he added.
According to Wright, scaling the model requires two things: increased government financing for UWA or a policy shift that makes conservation participation a condition for new tourism concessions.
Tumwesigye agreed that replicating this cooperation is possible, but only with the right partners “who have that deep love for conservation beyond business.”
Wright also warned that without long-term planning, Uganda could repeat the mistakes of Kenya and Tanzania, where high-volume tourism has strained ecosystems. “If you have high-volume tourism in wildlife parks, they will be destroyed. There is no question, they will be destroyed,” he noted.
Both Wright and Tumwesigye agree that they want low-impact, ethical wildlife tourism in Uganda.
According to Wright, Uganda must set firm conditions on the number of lodges an area can accommodate, how vehicles approach wildlife, and how tourists interact with wildlife.
He emphasized the need for a 5- to 10-year plan to prevent hotel clustering and unregulated construction. Instead of building repeatedly on the same sites, Wright urged authorities to open new, less-visited areas, ensuring tourism grows without overwhelming the country’s wildlife or landscapes.
Wright ended our interview by saying, “I think you’ve probably seen what’s going on in the Mara and Serengeti, with hundreds of cars waiting around a pride of lions and things like that. And if Uganda ever went that way, I’d end up having to sell my lodges and leave because I wouldn’t be able to reconcile with a similar situation emotionally.”
Uganda’s new model may not be the final answer to everything, but neighbouring Rwanda’s well-established sustainable tourism model shows that long-term commitment, strong policy and low-impact tourism can indeed drive recovery at scale. When conservation, tourism and government interests align, the results can be transformative.
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