Call for Proposals: Partner with Rainforest Trust Grant

Deadline: 01-Mar-2025

The Rainforest Trust is accepting grant applications to support non-profit organizations, Indigenous Peoples, and communities to protect ecosystems in the tropics and subtropics critical to endangered species and climate mitigation.

They do this by providing funding and other support to create or expand protected and conserved areas that benefit Species, Climate, and People.

Types of Awards

Rainforest Trust offers two types of funding support grants:
- Feasibility Awards
  - Rainforest Trust provides Feasibility Awards to assess the potential for creating or expanding protected or conserved areas. These awards are intended to address specific information gaps in conservation projects, as precursors to applying for a Protected or Conserved Area Creation Award. For instance, Feasibility Awards can support developing a legal pathway to protect a proposed site, or field surveys to determine the presence and abundance of Critically Endangered or Endangered species.
- Protected or Conserved Area Creation Awards
  - Rainforest Trust’s primary awards support the creation and expansion of protected or conserved areas, on land or sea, be it through designation, land titling, purchase or any other recognized methodology (e.g. Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs)). The goal is to empower Project Implementers to facilitate new, lasting and sustainable protected or conserved areas that are in line with community and government needs and desires.

Funding Information

Feasibility Awards
- The average size of Feasibility Awards is $10,000; in exceptional situations, amounts of greater than $20,000 may be considered.
Protected or Conserved Area Creation Awards
- Protected or Conserved Area Creation Awards of $250,000 and above.

Eligible Projects

Projects where Indigenous Peoples and or Local Communities Land Tenure is the Primary Conservation Strategy:
- Substantial management authority of the area will be led by the Indigenous Peoples or Local Communities.
- Land titles—or similar permanent land ownership or resource rights designations—and governance authority will be granted to the Indigenous Peoples and/or Local Communities with the customary right to the land in question;
- Lands and/or waters will be designated as a multiple-use territory with management (or co-management) by the Indigenous or Local Community.
Projects where Land Purchase is the Primary Conservation Strategy:
- Land is likely to be converted in the near future if purchase is not completed.
- An alternative protection strategy is not possible, more expensive, or significantly less effective.
- Conservation value is greater than expected based on the cost;
- Very high biodiversity value;
- Strategic value.
Projects where Marine Protected Area Creation is the Primary Conservation Strategy:
- Enabling conditions exist for Marine Protected Area (MPA) creation and effective management, including:
  - Overlaps area of maximum biodiversity benefit from MPAs;
  - Stands out on other measures of biodiversity value;
  - High carbon value.

Preffered Criteria

For traditional protected areas, land will have a high level of protection, preferably IUCN Category I or II where this does not infringe IP and LC rights.
Subsistence hunting, use of timber, artisanal fishing, small-scale mining, and use of non-timber forest products is permissible. Areas for residence and bio-agriculture or sustainable tourism are permitted within designated areas.
The Project Implementer has a solid track record of establishing or expanding protected or conserved areas (including land titling if applicable), which sustain low deforestation rates.
The project demonstrates a clear strategy for sustainable financing, and/or includes measures to explore this (which may be budgeted for in the project).
The project promotes the implementation of sustainable livelihoods, whether through subsistence activities, direct compensation (e.g. through environmental incentives such as Payment for Ecosystem Services or employment in conservation), and/or building community enterprise.
Processes are in place to evaluate the effectiveness and equitability of governance and management.
The resulting governing authority of the proposed protected or conserved area is legitimate, democratic, equitable, and accountable.
Regional or national governments have signaled their support for the site protection mechanism.
If requested, organizations/communities will be supported with capacity-strengthening funds (e.g. community association institutional strengthening, training on territorial patrolling, livelihood support).

Eligibility Criteria

The primary objective must be the creation/expansion of a protected or conserved area:
- The proposed area(s) must be currently unprotected. Please use the World Database of Protected Areas to help determine if formal protection is already afforded (IUCN category 1-6).
The proposed protected or conserved area serves to:
- Protect globally significant populations of Critically Endangered and Endangered species (e.g. Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) and Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) sites);
- Protect large areas of Tropical and Sub-tropical High Integrity Forests;
- Protect Tropical and Sub-tropical habitat critical for mitigating global climate change (e.g. peat swamps, mangroves, páramo).
The Project Implementer must be a legally registered non-government organization and authorized to conduct work in the country of the project.
The project demonstrates support from relevant governments (including Indigenous governments) and Indigenous Peoples and/or Local Communities, and that relevant Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) has been or will be properly conducted.
The protection mechanism, resulting in a change in legal status of the area during the course of the project, will mitigate critical threats to biodiversity and, where applicable, to carbon storage.
A management system (management plan and committee) is, or will be, in place that ensures positive and sustained outcomes for the in situ conservation of biodiversity.
Resource extraction limits are, or will be, established to prevent unsustainable use.

Deadlines

Feasibility Awards: Ongoing
Protected or Conserved Area Creation Awards: 1 March 2025

For more information, visit Rainforest Trust.