U.S. Aid Cuts Are Hitting Global Conservation Projects Hard

On February 3, Elon Musk typed a now-notorious post to his social media platform X: “Spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone [sic] to some great parties. Did that instead.”

The actions by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency that weekend set off a dizzying series of budget cuts and firings that have dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and eliminated billions of dollars of life-saving assistance around the globe. The devastating impacts of these cuts are already being felt, as programs to provide food to people in conflict zones and critically needed medicines, vaccines, and medical care in poor countries have been abruptly halted.

But while USAID is best known for its humanitarian work, it has also been one of the world’s largest supporters of wildlife conservation and environmental protection, backing a diverse portfolio of projects in dozens of countries — projects that protected elephants in Tanzania, great apes and national parks in central Africa, giant fishes and watersheds of the Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia, and rainforests in the Amazon, among many others.