Future Conservationist Awards of up to US$15,000 each

Deadline: 11-Oct-21

Nominations are now open for the Future Conservationist Awards to address global conservation priorities at a local level.

The Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP) is a training and capacity building programme that targets individuals from developing countries who are early in their conservation career and demonstrate leadership potential. As a partnership initiative between BirdLife International, Fauna & Flora International and the Wildlife Conservation Society, CLP builds the leadership capabilities of early-career conservation professionals working in places with limited capacity to address high-priority conservation issues. The partner organisations believe that the programme’s success can be attributed to the fact that it goes beyond grant giving, providing on-going support and access to networks that help awardees gain skills and move up the conservation career ladder.

CLP supports teams of individuals with less than five years of professional conservation experience, who display a strong commitment to conservation and demonstrate leadership potential. All team members should have a desire to be impact multipliers across the conservation sector with the ultimate goal of mitigating threats to biological diversity.

Funding Information

CLP offers Future Conservationist Awards of up to US$15,000 each to develop leadership capacity of early- career conservationists who want to make a positive difference on the ground.

Eligibility Criteria

• CLP offers support to early-career conservationists living and working in low- and middle-income economies in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern and South-eastern Europe and the Middle East.
• To be eligible for a CLP Future Conservationist Award, the team and project must meet the following eligibility criteria:
• Team:
  • CLP Awards are for team-based conservation projects – each team must have at least three people.
  • 50% or more of the team members must be nationals of the country where the project is taking place.
  • Nationals of a country subject to sanctions or trade restrictions imposed by the USA, UK or EU are NOT eligible to participate on a project team.
  • The team leader must be a national of the country where the project is taking place. Coleadership with a non-national will be considered,subject to clear justification.
  • All team members must be early-career conservationists with no more than five years of work experience in the conservation sector. ‘Work experience’ does not include research for a university degree. Individuals who have more than five years of work experience in the conservation sector are not eligible for CLP support and should not apply.
  • No team member can be a part- or full-time paid employee or contractor with a CLP partner organisation, including BirdLife International, Fauna & Flora International and the Wildlife Conservation Society, at any time from project development through to implementation.
  • Any team member volunteering at a CLP partner organisation at the time of application and/or project implementation MUST be declared in the application. They also need to explain how the CLP proposal differs from the partner organisation’s work.
  • Applicants can participate in only one CLP project at a time and in no more than three Future Conservationist Award projects in total, serving as team leader for no more than one Future Conservationist project.
• Project:
  • CLP offers support to early-career conservationists living and working in low and middle income economies in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern and South-eastern Europe and the Middle East. The project must take place in one of the eligible countries. See below for ineligible countries (high-income and countries with whom trade or other dealings are prohibited under any sanctions or restricted party regime imposed by the UN, EU, UK and USA) and high-income Caribbean and Pacific Island economies that are eligible.
  • The project duration must be no less than three months and no more thanone year in length.
  • The total funding request from CLP must not exceed US $15,000 and CLP funding must cover at least 50% of the total project budget.
  • The project must focus on globally important species for biodiversity conservation that are at risk. They consider a species to be ‘at risk’ if it is designated as globally threatened (CR, EN, VU) or data deficient (DD) by the IUCN Red List OR if there is information suggesting that urgent conservation action is needed.
  • For those projects focusing on multiple species and/or taxonomic groups, at least one species in each taxonomic group being studied must be at risk.
  • The project must be fornew work rather than the continuation of an ongoing, established project.
  • Applicants must demonstrate that the proposed project goesbeyond academic research being carried out for any team member’s degree.
  • Projects that involve laboratory analyses must justify why this work is critical and urgent for conservation.
  • The proposal must be written by the applicants themselves.

For more information, visit https://www.conservationleadershipprogramme.org/grants/grant-overview/future-conservationist-award/