Deadline: 1 March 2020
The Global Forest Watch (GFW) is currently accepting applications for its 2020 Small Grants Fund (SGF) to promote broad uptake and effective use of GFW tools and data by civil society organizations around the world. Successful projects translate data into action, applying GFW to overcome challenges in protecting the world’s forests.
In 2020, the Small Grants Fund will continue to focus on rapid response to deforestation through the use of early warning systems to identify, verify, investigate, and act upon satellite based alerts, with a primary focus on the Global Land and Discovery (GLAD) weekly deforestation alerts and, optionally, NASA’s VIIRs active fire alerts for improved forest management, law enforcement and advocacy.
Grant Information
SGF grants at a glance:
- The SGF awards organizations between $10,000 and $40,000 USD
- Depending on funding and project budget size, the number of projects selected can range from 8-15, with 12 being the average
- Projects will run from August 2020 – July 2021
- Each grantee will be assigned a World Research Institute (WRI) staff member as an advisor, who will provide remote technical support and other assistance
In addition to the financial support and technical assistance, SGF recipients become part of a network of organizations and receive benefits that extend beyond the lifetime of their grant. These include membership in the GFW Partnership, opportunities to connect with others in the GFW network, invitations to GFW events, opportunities to test and provide feedback on new GFW features, and the potential to be featured in blogs, social media, or other WRI communications materials.
Geographic Eligibility:
- Africa: Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Liberia, Uganda, Madagascar.
- Asia: Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia.
- Latin America: Belize, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Guatemala, Panama, Brazil, Guyana, Peru, Colombia, Honduras, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Mexico, Suriname.
Organizational Eligibility
In order to meet WRI’s requirements for subgrant eligibility, organizations must:
- Be legally constituted as non-profit and non-governmental;
- Have a total annual budget greater than $50,000 USD;
- Possess a computerized financial system for tracking and recording expenses (preferably not Excel);
- Be able to complete an organizational assessment document (containing questions regarding organization governance, financial and compliance structure) in fluent English.
- Be able to provide either organization’s most recent audit, or ALL three of the following documents:
- a Balance sheet for the most current and previous year;
- an Income Statement for the most current and previous year;
- a Cash Flow Statement for the most current and previous year
- Receive a rating of medium to low risk on WRI’s organizational assessment, which will be carried out once finalists are provisionally selected.
Project Eligibility
- The Small Grants Fund seeks applications for projects that clearly demonstrate how the organization intends to use early warning data (GLAD alerts) to enhance local responses to forest threats. Applicants are also strongly encouraged to use additional data on GFW or from other sources as relevant related to land cover, land use, and forest change.
- Applications should clearly articulate who the project aims to influence and how project activities will lead to improved response to deforestation. Projects may employ one or more of the following approaches to influencing these actors:
- Community engagement
- Advocacy
- Forest monitoring and enforcement
- Storytelling/journalism
- Successful projects will be those that have a demonstrated commitment to forest monitoring and sustainable forest management, and can articulate how the addition of early warning systems accessed through GFW tools will provide a value add to their existing work. They will also be able to convey which stakeholders are critical for their projects’ success and describe the nature of existing relationships with those stakeholders or outline a clear plan for establishing any new relationships with those stakeholders.
- The selection committee will also be looking for projects that are feasible while also likely to attain a meaningful result or results leading to decreased deforestation. Examples of past outcomes from successful projects include:
- A conservation organization collaborates with park rangers to patrol a protected area and collect data using GLAD alerts accessed through the Forest Watcher mobile app. They identify an illegal logging camp within the reserve, document their findings, and the perpetrators are fined.
- An indigenous community uses GLAD alerts to identify the location of an illegal mining site, and document further evidence of the site by taking aerial photos with a drone. They compile the data, maps and photos and submit a formal complaint to local authorities, who then shut down the site.
- An advocacy organization uses data on GFW to map, monitor and demonstrate instances of illegal land grabbing by a commodity company, and launch a campaign to apply public pressure for a response. Efforts lead to the successful revocation of the company’s concessions.
- A land rights organization analyzes data on GFW and demonstrates the effectiveness of a community-managed forested area in reducing deforestation. They submit this evidence to the appropriate ministry, and the community’s land rights are expanded.
- An investigative journalism organization uses the GLAD alerts to demonstrate the noncompliance of an infrastructure project with its environmental management plan. The responsible company is fined as a result.
- An environmental justice organization builds a MapBuilder platform to notify communities of the impacts infrastructure projects are having on deforestation. The platform generates increased citizen awareness and public participation in the project approval process, and policies are strengthened in favor of improved informed prior consultation.
For more information, visit https://bit.ly/2QVuYLt