It’s not just humans that are suffering from the Trump administration’s destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development. For nearly 40 years, USAID was one of the top global funders of international conservation . In December 2024, shortly before its demise, then-USAID director Samantha Power launched the agency’s sweeping new biodiversity policy , which emphasized locally led development and climate resilience as guiding principles for a $350 million annual conservation portfolio.