Tag: Darwin Initiative

Funding boost will help protect the world’s most endangered animals

UK government awards nearly £40 million to more than 80 projects through the Darwin Initiative and Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund

  • Projects from Ghana to Ecuador will support global action to protect wildlife and reverse biodiversity loss
  • Next round of funding also opens to new projects, building on government’s target to halt biodiversity loss by 2030

Threatened plants and animals, including elephants and pangolins are set to be protected thanks to new UK government funding announced today.

Over 80 conservation projects across the globe will benefit from nearly £40 million funding aimed at boosting international biodiversity, supporting the communities that live alongside nature and tackling illegal wildlife trade.

Some of the successful projects include:

  • Support for the International Snow Leopard Trust to provide specialised training to combat the poaching of snow leopards in countries like Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, and Pakistan;
  • Supporting the work of the Wildlife Conservation Society to reduce demand for collagen rich Pangolin scales in Traditional Chinese Medicine;
  • Supporting the Zoological Society of London’s effort to create sustainable ways for humans and elephants to coexist in areas such as Thailand, where they are often in conflict.

Environment minister Trudy Harrison said: ““The fantastic projects announced today will enhance efforts to protect threatened wildlife, support economic growth of developing countries and drive nature recovery.

“The UK is a global champion when it comes to biodiversity and driving action to halt and reverse the decline of nature. I am proud that – through our Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund and the Darwin Initiative – we will continue to play a leading role in conservation efforts around the world.”

Dr Charudutt Mishra, from the International Snow Leopard Trust said: “The snow leopard, an iconic species of Asia’s high mountains, is threatened by retaliatory killing due to their predation on livestock, and illegal trade of its pelt and other body parts.

“With support from the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund, we are empowering local and indigenous communities of High Asia with livelihood and conflict management initiatives to enable them to better coexist with snow leopards, and to support conservation efforts.

“We are also helping rangers improve their capacity and motivation in Illegal Wildlife Trade disruption with training, resources and enhanced social recognition in three countries.”

Chair of the Darwin Expert Committee Professor E.J. Milner-Gulland said: “I’m thrilled that the Darwin Initiative is funding such a wide range of outstanding projects, which will improve both biodiversity and human wellbeing in such a diversity of ways and in so many places.

“These projects bring fresh thinking and new ideas to conservation practice, produce evidence to support better conservation, as well as building the capacity of the next generation of conservationists around the world.

“It was a pleasure and honour to support Defra in their selection of these projects and I look forward to a new set of exciting proposals in the upcoming 30th round of the Darwin Initiative.”

The Darwin Initiative, a grants scheme to conserve and restore biodiversity and the communities that live alongside in developing countries, supported 63 of these successful projects with over £31.5 million funding. Projects will conserve nature-rich areas in developing countries and support communities who live and work in biodiverse areas to build resilience to climate change.

The Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund has supported 21 projects through £7.8 million funding to enhance the protection of threatened species. The projects will protect species including elephants, pangolins and threatened timber – and cement our leading role in cracking down on the £17 billion a year illegal wildlife trade which fuels corruption, deprives communities of sustainable livelihoods and degrades ecosystems.  

The UK is a global leader in supporting efforts to halt the decline in nature, protect wildlife and restore the natural world. Our efforts will help to deliver on the ambitious new global deal for nature agreed at the UN Nature Summit COP15 in December, which will protect 30% of our land and ocean by 2030.

Today’s announcement also confirms that the launch of Round 10 of the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund and Round 30 of the Darwin Initiative will be opening to applications in May 2023. Projects will soon be able to access up to a further £40 million funding building on the government’s commitment to combat biodiversity loss and improve animal welfare standards.

Further projects funded over the next five years include:

Darwin Initiative:

  • Beekeepers Restore the Forests of Afram Plains: this project will provide training for 1,000 beekeepers on topics including wildfire management and forest restoration, while mobilising communities to help curb illegal logging in Ghana.
  • Scaling rights-based approaches for conservation and poverty reduction in Indonesia: this locally led project is working to scale up an approach developed over the past seven years to advance the rights of indigenous communities, improve socio-economic conditions, and conserve biodiversity across Indonesia.
  • Building Capacity for Reciprocal Watershed Agreements in the Tropical Andes: this project will help roll out Reciprocal Watershed Agreements, where residents will be supported to develop projects that protect forests and wildlife while providing new livelihood opportunities for local communities. The funding will help to scale up the project, building capacity and capability across Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund:

  • Furs For Life – Preserving Culture, Protecting Nature: this project empowers women-led enterprises in Zambia and South Africa to produce synthetic fur garments, replacing authentic wild cat skin garments in local communities.
  • Conservation Litigation & Wildlife (CLAW): this project explores innovative ways to hold perpetrators of Illegal Wildlife Trade accountable by using liability laws to demand that they provide remedies for the damage they cause.
  • Unlocking DNA barcoding to identify illegal timber: this project will work to overcome the technical challenges proving a barrier to timber identification – a technique vital to improving the detection and prevention of the illegal timber trade.

Further Information

Round 10 of the IWTCF will open for new applications on Monday 1st May 2023. For more information on previous projects as well as how to apply please visit: https://iwt.challengefund.org.uk/

World Environment Day: Over £8m boost for international conservation

Threatened species such as whales, marine turtles and sharks will be better protected thanks to a boost of over £8 million for projects in the UK Overseas Territories, the UK Government has announced today under plans to tackle the global biodiversity crisis.

The funding will also help protect a number of rare species and vulnerable habitats across the globe from the threats from invasive species.

Over the next three years, 31 projects will receive £8.02 million through the Darwin Plus scheme for conservation of the unique and globally significant environments found in UK Overseas Territories.

Habitats and species set to benefit from funding include:

  • Threatened albatross species in the southern Atlantic overseas territories, Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, through improved population monitoring
  • A number of species found in Cayman’s Sister Islands will be safeguarded from invasive species such as feral cats and invasive green iguanas
  • Anguilla’s shark populations, through increasing knowledge of their habitats and conservation needs, while developing local ownership of their conservation through greater community engagement
  • The Ascension Islands’ marine turtles through making improvements to their monitoring programme using innovative modelling techniques and new labour-saving technologies
  • Coral reefs in the Indian Ocean by helping small-scale fishers to sustainably manage these habitats on the island of Diego Garcia

International Environment Minister Lord Goldsmith said: “World Environment Day provides us all with a stark reminder of why we need to take urgent action to reverse global biodiversity loss.

“The Darwin Plus funding announced today will support the magnificent biodiversity hotspots that make up our Overseas Territories, which are so threatened by climate change. It will restore precious ecosystems, prevent the extinction of some of the world’s most wonderful species, and at the same time transform the lives of the poorest communities.

“Over the last decade the Darwin Plus programme has supported over 120 individual projects supporting conservation in marine, terrestrial and freshwater environments. The UK government, as president of the G7 and COP26, is leading the way globally in the fight to tackle climate change and repair the natural world.”

Professor E.J. Milner Gulland, Oxford University and Chair of the Darwin Expert Committee and Darwin Plus Advisory Group, said: “The UK’s Overseas Territories are home to some of our most iconic and important threatened biodiversity, as well as rich and productive natural resources.

“The Darwin Plus projects span the range of biodiversity from wetlands to whales, and addresses issues from controlling invasive thorns to tracking threatened turtles. So I’m really happy that, on World Environment Day, the Darwin Plus fund is supporting the Overseas Territories to conserve their precious biodiversity while also building a sustainable future for people and nature.”

Beccy Speight, Chief Executive of the RSPB said: “Our Government has an important role to play as we all work to revive our world, the UK’s Overseas Territories are home to 94% of the plants and animals that are only found on UK soil. But these amazing places are under threat from the nature and climate emergencies.

“Failing to act in our Territories would raise the real risk of global extinctions, so this vital funding will help fulfil our responsibilities to protect our precious wildlife, from tropical rainforests in the Caribbean to wind-swept albatross islands in the Southern Ocean.

“Today’s announcement, plus the UK Government’s additional £1.5m contribution to support our major partnership project to restore Gough Island, a threatened UK World Heritage Site in the South Atlantic recognised as one of the most important seabird islands in the world, will be welcome news to the local community and many individuals who continue to support this vital work.”

Last month, the Climate and Environment Ministers of the G7 committed to halting and reversing the loss of biodiversity by 2030.

In efforts to tackle the twin challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, all G7 members also signed up to the global ‘30×30’ initiative to conserve or protect at least 30 per cent of the world’s land and at least 30 per cent of the world’s ocean by 2030, as well as committing to ‘30×30’ nationally.

The funding being announced today builds on the £220 million for biodiversity conservation in developing nations, and the doubling of UK international climate finance, announced by the Prime Minister at the UN General Assembly in 2019.

Today’s announcement forms part of the UK Government’s commitments to drive international ambition on action to tackle the biodiversity crisis and work towards nature-based solutions ahead of the G7, the upcoming 15th UN Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (Convention of Biological Diversity COP15), and the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) which will be hosted in Glasgow later this year.

In the run up to the summit, the UK is focused on four goals to drive progress: securing global net zero, protecting communities and natural habitats from the impacts of climate change, mobilising finance and working together to accelerate action.

A full list of projects, including a number of small schemes, to be supported by the Darwin Plus programme is available on the Darwin Initiative website.

World Elephant Day: UK Government supports iconic mammals

A major UK Government-supported project has helped over 70,000 people and hundreds of elephants live side-by-side peacefully in Myanmar.

The Asian elephant’s habitat ranges across 13 countries in Asia, but it is an endangered species with less than 40,000 remaining worldwide – less than one-tenth of the African elephant population. Continue reading World Elephant Day: UK Government supports iconic mammals