Wildlife Recoveries Offer Hope Amid Wider Population Decline

Conservation programmes have helped some threatened wildlife populations recover, offering evidence that long-term protection and community involvement can produce results despite a broader decline in monitored animal populations worldwide.

The WWF Living Planet Report recorded a 73 percent fall in the average size of monitored wildlife populations over the past 52 years. The report identified food production, fossil-fuel-based energy and finance for harmful activities as primary systems driving the destruction of nature.

Yet the report also highlighted recoveries among green sea turtles, Atlantic bluefin tuna, tigers and Southern African elephants.

Mountain gorillas show the value of sustained action

Mountain gorillas, once described as being on a fast track to extinction in the 1980s, now number more than 1,100 in thriving populations across Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, gorilla tourism has supported a local economy involving wood carvings, accommodation and employment for rangers and guides. The park’s surrounding accommodation serves up to 40,000 tourists a year, while visitors described in the report paid $800 for a gorilla-viewing experience.

Gorillas also support their forest ecosystem through foraging, nest building and seed dispersal.

Tara Stoinski of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund said the recovery demonstrated that conservation can succeed when it combines direct protection, scientific management and meaningful community participation.

“It’s a really important example of the effort that’s needed to make that happen – decades of sustained conservation action that includes direct protection, science-informed management and meaningful community support and involvement,” Stoinski said.

Recoveries across continents

Global wild tiger numbers rose by more than 70 percent between 2010 and 2025, according to WWF. The organisation attributed the increase in part to intergovernmental commitments among tiger-range countries, including India, Bhutan, Nepal, Laos and China.

The green sea turtle was moved from endangered to least concern on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List in 2025. The change followed 50 years of research and conservation measures, including protection for nesting females and eggs, efforts to reduce fishing-gear threats and community engagement.

Professor Brendon Godley of the University of Exeter and the Sharjah Marine Research Centre said the turtle’s recovery showed what could happen when science, policy, enforcement and public support worked together. He also warned that such progress should not lead to complacency.

Atlantic bluefin tuna populations had fallen by 80 percent by 2010. The fish are now returning to UK waters in numbers not seen for generations, and possibly ever, although the report did not provide a precise population estimate.

Tom Horton, a research fellow at the University of Exeter, said the return was particularly significant because it made conservation visible to coastal communities, fishers and other sea-users.

Declines remain severe

Not all species are following the same path. Grauer’s gorilla numbers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have dropped by an estimated 60 percent to about 6,800. The animals inhabit remote forests affected by instability and habitat loss.

Urbain Ngobobo, country director for the Dian Fossey Fund in the country, pointed to forest protection led with communities, gorilla monitoring and the development of Congolese conservation leaders as signs of progress.

Andrew Terry, chief conservation officer at the Zoological Society of London, said wildlife declines were not unavoidable. “But these declines are not inevitable and change is possible. Nature can recover, and these stories are a powerful reminder of this,” he said.

Kirsten Schuijt, WWF’s director general, said efforts to transform the systems driving nature loss were advancing, but not universally or at the scale required. The recovery examples therefore point to the potential of conservation while underscoring the continuing need for stronger action.