"Most of the developing countries simply do not have the capacity to run these areas. There is an urgent need for capacity building," said John Hanks, director of southern African transfrontier areas at Conservation International.

"The situation in many protected areas in Africa is perilous," added Hanks, who participated in a joint study presented to the World Parks Congress under way in South Africa's eastern port city of Durban.

The parks congress, which takes place once every 10 years, is dicussing the world's 100,000 environmentally protected sites and how to safeguard them, as well as its impact on communities living in these areas.

The study found that the world needed at least 9.5 billion dollars to maintain existing national parks and conserved areas, and another 23 billion dollars per year in the next decade to expand these areas.

A shortfall of 2.5 billion dollars existed, with 1.5 billion dollars of that amount needed in developing nations. A total of one billion dollars is currently being spent in poor countries.

The figures were calculated in a joint project involving managers of protected areas, Conservation International, Birdlife International, the University of Cambridge and the Centre for Applied Biodiversity Sciences.

"We are not talking about some unaffordable luxury here. It is a realistic and absolutely essential figure," Andrew Balmford of the University of Cambridge told reporters.

"These are the kind of numbers we are putting forward to the congress. The money may not be available immediately and we will need innovative thinking to narrow the gap," he said.

On Wednesday, the World Bank announced here that its lending for environmental projects was expected to nearly double from 1.1 billion dollars this year to 2.1 billion dollars next year.

About 2,500 delegates from over 170 countries are attending the congress. They are expected to adopt the "Durban Accord", which will set targets for the next 10 years, by the meeting's close on Wednesday.

Hanks said the shortfall in poor countries already had catastrophic results in some areas.

In Latin America, protected areas have been cleared for agriculture while in Asia some of the world's endangered species such as tigers, and other animals like monkeys and crocodiles, are being poached for illegal sale.

In a park in southwestern Angola, the number of wild animals is far outnumbered by livestock belonging to local communities who exploit the land for grazing.

"We are in situations where we have literally no money and no staff in protected areas," Hanks said.

"There is certainly a lack of political will in Africa to preserve biodiversity," he said, adding that governments had other pressing problems that needed attention.

Hanks however referred to Botswana with its huge elephant population as a success story, with about 60 percent of the residents in northern parts of the country benefiting from tourism.

In South Africa, national parks have to find about four-fifths of their revenue from sources other than the government. The majority of their money comes from concessions, gate revenues, sales and donations.

The team that calculated the budget projections said the best scenario for developing countries was to combine conservation with social and economic upliftment.

"If we don't come up with ways of narrowing the gap, we will not only lose existing things, but the things we have will become more difficult to conserve. When the threat gets out of hand, the cost of recovery greatly exceeds the cost of maintenance," Hanks said.

TERRA.WIRE