Uganda has suffered during lockdown. As much as 7% of the countries population works in tourism, a sector which has been either totally shut down, or greatly reduced over the last few years. Several other countries like Tanzania have suffered in a similar way.
How can we expect countries to protect huge ecosystems if the income to protect them can dry up with no warning?
I believe that this makes it clear, that these countries cannot rely on tourism directly for too much of their money.
Perhaps one of the simple way to help in this regard, is for those countries with little wilderness left, financially paying and supporting places trying to retain their last wildernesses.
Uganda has a gdp of roughly £26 billion a year. If the wealthy countries were to support countries like this in a meaningful way, it would not be enormously expensive. If every western country put in an average of a billion into a fund, during emergencies like this, we could cover the loss of revenue from tourism. It is as much our responsibility to protect Gorillas and other wildlife as it is the Ugandan government.
Lets try to protect the natural world as a world, and stop the poorest countries having to pay the most to conserver the natural world.
