WFN Continuation Funding provides timely support to aid the scale up and development of successful Whitley Award winning projects around the world. A total of £280,000 has been awarded in June 2014 to six winners:
Karen Aghababyan, Armenia – £70,000 over two years
Karen is joining forces with 2013 Whitley Gold Award winner Cagan Sekercioglu to scale up his successful model for community-involvement in white stork and wetland monitoring from Armenia to neighbouring Turkey and will also conduct important studies to determine the most effective ways to reverse wetland pollution and develop sustainable and non-polluting alternatives in southern Armenia.
MD Madhusudan, India – £35,000 over one year
Madhu’s work is strengthening and increasing Protected Areas and improving the management of vital non-protected habitat in Karnataka state, western India. With a focus on conflict prone species leopards and elephants – along with community outreach and improving local involvement in conservation – Madhu’s project is also building capacity for research linked to improving conservation management policy.
Patricia Medicia, Brazil – £70,000 over two years
With this project, Pati is scaling-up her lowland tapir conservation programme to establish the project in the Cerrado region, reaching a 3rd major biome where tapirs occur in Brazil after already covering the Pantanal and Atlantic Forest biomes. Pati’s work is built on very strong scientific research and public outreach, and aims to develop and implement practical management and conservation measures to improve protection of tapirs and their habitat.
Claudio Padua, Brazil – £35,000 over one year
This project builds on Claudio’s previous successful Black lion tamarin project and will involve conservation research to assess the status of the current Black lion tamarin populations and update the Meta-population Management Plan – first developed in the 1990s – which will be put into action. Claudio’s BLT project is a famous success and resulted in the species being down-listed from Critically Endangered. It has also resulted in the establishment of Protected Areas and restored habitat.
Bernal Rodriguez Herrera, Costa Rica – £35,000 over one year
Bernal’s Whitley Award winning project successfully created a conservation strategy for bats in five countries across Central America. With this new project, Bernal will implement and execute the objectives outlined in this strategy, including protection of key areas for bats, community outreach and education in these areas and also improvement of vampire bat control and management and understanding.
Marleny Rosales Meda, Guatemala – £35,000 over one year
Marlen’s project is scaling-up her successful community environmental education and conservation management programmes in the Ecoregion Lachua and neighbouring areas. Marleny is also influencing policy through improved laws for sustainability in hunting and also through the national accreditation of the environmental education programme whilst gaining strong local support and community involvement.