In April, the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP) announced the winners of its 2022 Team Awards, which will provide support for 23 teams of early-career conservationists leading projects on globally threatened species. These local biodiversity champions will receive project funding worth a combined total of USD 456,077, thanks to support from Arcadia—a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin—and the March Conservation Fund.
One member from each award-winning team is invited to attend the CLP Conservation Leadership & Management workshop. This year, this course is in a hybrid format, with the first part having taken place virtually, in July, and the second part tentatively planned to take place in-person, in October. As in previous years, the workshop offers training in essential topics for professional conservationists, enabling them to build on the knowledge and skills that will underpin their future careers as conservation leaders. By bringing participants together from around the world, the workshop provides an opportunity to form valuable connections with other early-career conservationists. Winning a CLP award also gives each team access to the CLP alumni network, which offers further opportunities for funding, training, mentoring and knowledge exchange.
This year's award-winning projects include seven Continuation Awards granted to CLP alumni, allowing them to scale up their past CLP projects: two Leadership Awards (c. USD 50,000 each) and five Follow-Up Awards (c. USD 25,000 each). Sixteen Future Conservationist Awards (c. USD 15,000 each) have been granted to teams of early-career conservationists. There are nine projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, seven in Africa, and seven in Asia and the Pacific.
The successful teams will undertake research and practical conservation action to conserve a range of threatened species, many of which are categorized as threatened on the IUCN Red List. These include the red siskin Carduelis cucullata in Guyana, giant squeaker frog Arthroleptis krokosua and giant guitarfishes Rhynchobatus luebberti and Glaucostegus cemiculus in Ghana, Maire's yew tree Taxus mairei in Nepal, and gharial Gavialis gangeticus in India.
CLP was able to fund two of the Future Conservationist Awards this year thanks to support from the March Conservation Fund, secured through BirdLife International. One of these projects will focus on reconciling the expansion of oil palm plantations with the conservation of the Endangered grey parrot Psittacus erithacus in Nigeria, and the other seeks to explore the threats facing the Critically Endangered Bengal florican Houbaropsis bengalensis in the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, Nepal. To view a full list of the projects, visit conservationleadershipprogramme.org/our-projects/latest-projects-2022.
CLP was initiated in 1985 and is a partnership between BirdLife International, Fauna & Flora International and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
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