Search

We’ve recently awarded funding to 52 new Darwin Initiative projects under Round 30. The Darwin Initiative is one of the UK government’s flagship Biodiversity Challenge Funds, and competitively awards grants for biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction activities in eligible countries, supporting the communities who live and work in biodiverse areas to build resilience to climate change .

Over £28.8 million has been awarded to projects working across 42 countries. These grants have been awarded to 3 Extra projects, 20 Main projects, 7 Innovation projects and 22 Capability & Capacity projects. Projects range from tackling human-wildlife conflict  in Indonesia to restoring biodiversity through coffee agroforestry in Nicaragua to securing critically endangered wildlife and human livelihoods in Senegal.

A full list of successful Round 30 Darwin Initiative projects can be found here.

Chair of the Darwin Initiative Expert Committee, E.J. Milner-Gulland, shared the following:

“The announcement of each year’s new crop of Darwin Initiative projects is a particularly exciting time, as projects are always of very high quality, providing scalable solutions to some of the most pressing problems affecting economically deprived communities and the biodiversity on which they depend, in countries where the need is greatest. As a challenge fund, the Darwin Initiative is open to any project idea that addresses the issues that are most salient on the ground, as proposed by organisations working on the frontline. This means that we get a wide diversity of projects, from all over the world, taking novel approaches to supporting local people to improve their wellbeing and conserve biodiversity ranging from fungi to timber to invertebrates to elephants. They address anything from clean water, to health care, to education, and developing new enterprises. Our newer funds, which promote innovation, capability and capacity-building, and support the scaling up of successful models, provide new avenues for funding exciting work, alongside our main projects. I congratulate all those who have received Darwin Initiative funding in this round, and look forward to seeing how their projects progress, and catalyse further change, over the next few years.”

The team at the Biodiversity Challenge Funds would like to extend a huge congratulations to all newly awarded projects – we look forward to seeing your progress!