Global conservation efforts show signs of recovery amid biodiversity crisis

Under the canopy of Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a group of gorillas is quietly observed by a cluster of tourists, each paying 800 dollars for the experience. In the villages around the park, a bustling economy has taken shape around the gorillas' presence, from selling carved wooden goods to visitors to providing lodging for as many as 40,000 tourists a year. Inside the national park, which stretches along the Rift Valley and the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, there are jobs for rangers and guides.

But deeper in the forest, many mountain gorillas live apart from humans, quietly enriching the surrounding ecosystem through daily activities such as foraging, nesting and dispersing seeds. More importantly, their numbers are growing.

In the 1980s, mountain gorillas stood on the brink of extinction. Today, more than 1,100 individuals live in growing populations across Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is a conservation success story that radiates beyond the species itself, to the nature they inhabit and the communities around them. "The mountain gorilla story shows that conservation can work," Tara Stoinski of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund told Al Jazeera. "It is an important example of what it takes – decades of sustained conservation action including direct protection, science-based management and community support and engagement."

When science and policy align

It is welcome news for a natural world facing crisis. According to this year's Living Planet Report from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the average size of monitored wildlife populations has fallen 73 percent over the past 52 years. Globally, habitats are being degraded and lost to overexploitation, climate change, pollution and invasive species. Yet the report also highlights significant recoveries for green turtles, bluefin tuna, tigers and southern African elephants. "Nature has been undervalued for too long," Andrew Terry, conservation director at the Zoological Society of London, who contributed to the report, said. "But this decline is not inevitable and change is possible. Nature can recover, and these stories are a powerful reminder."

WWF says these successes prove that international partnerships deliver results. Intergovernmental commitments from tiger-range countries including India, Bhutan, Nepal, Laos and China helped raise the global wild tiger population by more than 70 percent between 2010 and 2025. In 2025, the green turtle became the first sea turtle species to be downgraded from "endangered" to "least concern" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List, reflecting 50 years of research, protection of eggs and nesting females, reduced fishing gear and community engagement.

Professor Brendon Godley, a conservation scientist at the University of Exeter and the Sharjah Marine Research Centre, told Al Jazeera: "Success stories matter because they show that decline is not inevitable. The recovery of species like the green turtle shows that when science, policy, enforcement and public support align, populations can recover, sometimes astonishingly so. However, it does not mean we can be complacent."

Small battles – where hope takes root

Indeed, these victories are small battles in a larger war against nature's decline. The Living Planet Report identifies three main systems driving the damage: the global food system, which causes habitat loss; the energy system, which burns fossil fuels; and the financial system, which funds harmful activities such as large-scale infrastructure or mining. Kirsten Schuijt, WWF's director general, said: "Progress is happening, not everywhere and not at the scale needed, but enough to prove that change is possible."

The return of a single species can have a powerful effect. In 2010, Atlantic bluefin tuna had fallen by 80 percent and was listed as endangered, disappearing from much of its historical range including British waters. Today, they are back in numbers unseen for generations. Tom Horton, a researcher at the University of Exeter, said: "What is remarkable is that the recovery is visible. Coastal communities and fishermen who had never seen bluefin tuna in British waters now encounter them regularly. That turns conservation from an abstract concept into something real."

These successes are inspiring other conservation projects, such as efforts to save the largest primate on Earth – the critically endangered Grauer's gorilla. They live in remote forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where instability and habitat loss are rife. Estimates put their numbers down 60 percent, to just 6,800 individuals. Urbain Ngobobo, DRC director of the Dian Fossey Fund, explained that the challenges of recovery are great, but so are the opportunities. "Every forest we help communities protect, every gorilla we manage to monitor and every young Congolese person who develops conservation leadership skills is progress. That is where hope takes root – not from assuming an easier future, but from knowing that action today can change what is possible tomorrow."