Deadline: 4 March 2019
Cambridge Conservation Initiative (Endangered Landscapes Programme) is seeking proposals for its Project Innovation Grants to support the preparatory work and planning needed for innovative new landscape restoration projects across Europe.
The Endangered Landscapes Programme provides inspiration for a future in which biodiversity and ecosystem processes are restored to Europe’s degraded lands, establishing resilient, more self-sustaining ecosystems. Working in partnership with local communities, the programme supports the creation of large, connected landscapes that allow species to adapt to environmental stresses and promotes the development of local economies and sustainable livelihoods.
The Endangered Landscapes Programme supports initiatives that:
- Address biodiversity conservation priorities (for species and habitats) through the creation of dynamic landscapes suitable for threatened wildlife
- Establish large scale systems of continuous or ecologically-connected habitat where native species can move and disperse
- Create areas where natural processes are given increased freedom to generate natural patterns and distributions of species
- Enhance ecosystem and species resilience to the impacts of climate change
- Help overcome one or more barriers to ecosystem recovery (be they social, economic or political) enabling ecological processes to reach a ‘tipping point’ beyond which, to an extent, they cascade and are self-sustaining
- Provide sustainable cultural, social and economic benefits to society, through restored ecosystem functions and ecosystem services
Funding Information
The total funding available is $600,000. The maximum that any individual project can apply for is $100,000. Applications for smaller amounts are encouraged.
Project Purpose
The principle activity of the ELP is the provision of large grants ($3-$5M) for the restoration of biodiversity and natural ecological processes to degraded landscapes. However, the consultation, participatory planning, research, analysis and team-building required for landscape-scale projects takes time and resources and may present a barrier to the development of new and innovative projects. Therefore, in addition to the provision of these large grants, Project Innovation Grants from the ELP will support the work needed to prepare plans (and in some cases funding proposals) for exciting new landscape restoration initiatives. These are stand-alone grants – there is no plan for the Endangered Landscapes Programme to fund projects beyond this planning stage. A Project Innovation Grant might, for example, include work to plan a project through a combination of the following:
- Build alliances of stakeholders
- Collect, collate and review available information
- Carry out surveys of the landscape
- Conduct expert technical assessments (e.g. of hydrology or forest regeneration potential)
- Map the area
- Engage with local communities
- Prepare business plans
- Establish land ownership and land rights
Criteria
Applicants should be able to demonstrate that:
- There is potential to restore the landscape
- Landscape restoration is likely to deliver on the aims of the ELP as outlined above
- There are barriers (knowledge, partnership, stakeholder support, resources) to developing a plan for restoring the landscape
- The work that will be undertaken with a Project Innovation Grant will overcome these barriers and allow the project proponent/team to develop a clear and costed plan, which has the support of relevant stakeholders.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applications that are led by not-for-profit organisations including, for example, local, national, regional and international NGOs; social enterprise organisations; and research institutions are invited. Project leads may partner with e.g. industry, local government or private land owners.
- Applications are accepted for projects in the below-mentioned countries.
- Applicants that are awarded a grant will be required to provide evidence that they are financially resilient (a recent audited report) and that they have capacity to manage and coordinate the project.
How to Apply
Applications should be submitted in Word format, using Arial 10 font at the address given on the website.
Eligible Countries: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan (west of River Ural), Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Republic of, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia (as far East as the Urals), San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Vatican City.
For more information, please visit https://www.endangeredlandscapes.org/2019/01/07/project-innovation-grants-call-for-proposals-announced/