Already valued at an estimated $185 billion, the worldwide ecotourism segment is expected to exceed $374 billion in global impact within the decade.

The number of travelers seeking out trips that engage with National Parks, Wildlife, Marine Reserves and Indigenous Territories has grown by nearly 18% since just last year, drastically increasing the number of visitors to places like Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe, Indonesia’s Komodo National Park, and Mirador National Park, Guatemala.

Together, National Parks in developing countries draw in tens of millions of tourists per year, but due to ineffective international funding for Park and Wildlife Protection, and in-country corruption, few National Parks receive the needed resources to protect their millions of acres of intact forests and wildlife habitats.

As the planet grapples with the consequences of massive deforestation, illegal logging, cattle ranching, illegal mining and wildlife poaching, these magnets for ecotourism are critical bastions for keystone species like tigers, elephants, jaguars, chimpanzees, orangutans and rhinoceros, and their intact forest ecosystems.

To help protect these vulnerable National Parks and Indigenous Territories in developing countries, non-profit organization Global Conservation works with national park authorities and indigenous leaders to deploy Global Park Defense and Community Protection, providing rangers and local community patrols with the systems, equipment and training they need to combat increasing threats from illegal loggers and wildlife poachers.

To learn more, we spoke with Global Conservation’s Executive Director Jeff Morgan, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has spent decades in the non-profit field working to protect the planet’s natural and cultural resources.

Read the full article about ecotourism and conservation by Joe Sills at Forbes.