Nominations open for 2022 Future Conservationist Awards ($15,000)

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

If you are an early-career conservationist who wants to make a positive difference, apply for this challenge.

About the awards

The Conservation Leadership Program (CLP) is a training and capacity-building program targeted at individuals from developing countries who are early in their conservation career and demonstrate leadership potential.

CLP launched the Future Conservationist Awards to provide capital, ongoing support, and access to networks that help awardees gain skills and move up the conservation career ladder.

The initiative seeks to support early-career conservationists living and working in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern and South-eastern Europe, and the Middle East.

Through the Future Conservationist Awards, CLP in partnership with BirdLife International, Fauna & Flora International, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, CLP will help to build the leadership capabilities of early-career conservation professionals working in places with limited capacity to address high-priority conservation issues.

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.

Grant size

CLP offers Future Conservationist Awards of up to US$15,000 each to develop the leadership capacity worthy of early-career conservationists.

Eligibility criteria

To qualify for the award, teams, and projects must meet the following requirements:

Team

• CLP Awards are for team-based conservation projects – each team must have not more than three people.
• The team leader and 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.
• All team members must be early-career conservationists with less than five years of work experience in the conservation sector.
• Team members must not be part- or full-time paid employees or contractors with a CLP partner organization, including BirdLife International, Fauna & Flora International, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, at any time;
• Applicants can participate in only one CLP project at a time and in no more than three Future Conservationist Award projects in total;
• Applicants must write the proposal themselves

Note that any team member volunteering at a CLP partner organization at the time of application and/or project implementation MUST indicate this in the application.

They also need to explain how the CLP proposal differs from the partner organization’s work.

Project

• The project must take place in any of the eligible low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern and South-eastern Europe, and the Middle East.
• The project duration must be no less than three months and no more than one year in length.
• The total funding request from CLP must not exceed the US $15,000 and CLP funding must cover at least 50% of the total project budget.
• 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 for new work rather than the continuation of an ongoing, established project.
• Projects that involve laboratory analyses must justify why this work is critical and urgent for conservation.
• The project must focus on globally important species for biodiversity conservation that are at risk.

How to apply

• Read the Future Conservationist Awards guidelines
• Once that’s done, click here to register for the awards.

Deadline

Nominations close on Sunday, October 10, 2021.