Is your community reliant on wildlife tourism impacted by COVID-19?
The Lion’s Share is currently considering proposals between USD $20,000 and $50,000 focused on strengthening resiliency in communities reliant on wildlife-based ecotourism. The deadline to submit your proposal is 5 pm (EST) May 15, 2020. UNDP Lion’s Share programme encourages any interested non-profit organization to submit the following proposal!
The PDF below has information about this opportunity and below that is a pdf of the application form. Good luck and God bless you all!
As of April 14, 2020, over 1.8 million people worldwide have contracted the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. The spread of COVID-19 is a health crisis but it is not just a health crisis. COVID-19 threatens to create devastating social, economic, and political crises that could leave deep scars for years to come – reversing development gains achieved over the last 20 years. Developing countries could lose at least US$220 billion in income, which translates into lost jobs and stretched governments in some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries.
Resilience in Wildlife Communities
More than 75% of our planet’s land surface is affected by human activities and in recent years the emergence of zoonotic infectious diseases such as COVID-19 has increased significantly as habitat is disturbed and human exposure to formerly remote pathogen reservoirs in nature increases.
As countries restrict international travel and the movement of people to slow the spread of corona virus, many communities are experiencing insecurity from the loss of income generated from tourists.
The Lion’s Share calls for proposals for the Resilience in Wildlife Community Grants, which supports initiatives in communities dependent on wildlife-based tourism and income from associated activities, to withstand this current, and future, outbreak of pandemics and other global shocks. The small grants (US$ 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 and the sustainable management of ecosystems. 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.
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 We encourage 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 information; – 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.
How to Apply
Please submit the proposal using the attached template with any supporting documents to The Lion’s Share Secretariat at TheLionsShare@UNDP.org, by 5 pm EST, May 15, 2020.
About The Lion’s Share: Animals have been used in advertising for over 150 years, and feature in approximately 20% of all adverts we see. Alarmingly, most popular animals used in these advertising campaigns are either endangered or threatened and face a precarious future.
With over 1 million species at risk of extinction within decades, our planet is in crisis and the risk of losing iconic species has never been higher. The Lion’s Share presents an innovative mechanism that engages global brands and advertisers in global conservation efforts.
The Fund, hosted by the UNDP, encourages privates sector companies to contribute 0.5% of their media spend on advertisements featuring animals to fund conservation and animal welfare projects around the world. The Lion’s Share is a simple way to make a powerful difference. Visit: https://www.thelionssharefund.com/content/thelionssharefund/en/home/
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Reblogged this on Hugh Paxton's Blog and commented:
This will be helpful to a lot of communities suffering hardship due to Novel Coronavirus COVID-19!