Deadline: 15 May 2020
The Lion’s Share has launched a call for proposals titled “Resilience in Wildlife Community Grants”, to support initiatives in communities dependent on wildlife-based tourism.
The small grants (US$ 20,000 – 50,000) are disbursed to non-profit organizations in developing countries seeking funds to catalyze community/local-level action to protect severely threatened ecosystems or wildlife in their last strongholds. These grants will finance local projects that find innovative solutions to wildlife conservation challenges, while simultaneously enhancing local people’s well-being and livelihood.
Strengthening Resilience of Wildlife Economies
Community and wildlife-based tourism can help generate incentives for conservation. Wildlife based tourism operations and associated enterprises can provide direct benefits that can offset pressures from other less sustainable activities that are environmentally and/or socially destructive.
Grantees will demonstrate solutions that show how communities in wildlife rich areas can become more resilient to major shocks such as pandemics and natural disasters, which bring sharp decreases in visitor numbers, while maintaining conservation and livelihood objectives in parallel for the mutual benefit of wildlife and ecosystems.
Solutions could include: resilient alternative livelihood opportunities that can survive periods of volatility, expanding revenue streams for wildlife supportive industries, integrating sustainable agriculture models into nature-based tourism (e.g. securing food and water supplies for communities in ‘downtimes’), enhancing connectivity and promoting virtual wildlife tourism experiences for sustained local income, implementing fast, timely and effective measures to ensure the health and safety of wildlife, promoting coping strategies that support gender equality and empower women, etc. This provides an opportunity to evolve the nature-based tourism approach towards sustainability and survival in times of crisis.
Selection Criteria
Each proposal will be assessed based on the grant objectives outlined below:
- Deliver concrete results within one year of fund transfer;
- Represent an investment in a developing country in areas with critical species and habitats with current nature-based tourism activities;
- Demonstrate wider community benefits with increased resilience;
- Demonstrate innovation and scalability (to other communities);
- Address longer-term sustainability of interventions;
- Provide compelling local stories.
Submission
The Lion’s Share encourages any interested non-profit organization to submit a proposal using the attached template that outlines:
- Background on the project region, including key threats to wildlife and biodiversity and socioeconomic
- Current wildlife-based tourism operations and/or tourism related enterprises;
- Proposed activities to be funded with clear outputs and how the outputs will make communities more resilient;
- Timeline for project completion;
- Implementation partners (if any);
- Amount of funding requested;
- Budget information.
For more information, visit https://www.thelionssharefund.com/content/thelionssharefund/en/home/news/COVID-19-response-call-for-proposals/
