Current Funders
Earthwatch works with a number of corporations and trusts that provide vital sponsorship for Capacity Development training programmes.
We’re enormously grateful to the following trusts and organisations for their generous sponsorship of the Capacity Development programme in 2010/11:
The Neville Shulman fund operates an innovative programme for capacity builders to continue their learning. The programme, which will run for 10 years from 2008, will every year award financial support to two individuals in developing nations to initiate and run their own environmental education or research project from concept to completion.
The fund also seeks to support a further four emerging scientists from developing nations to continue their education in conservation.
More info...
John Ellerman Foundation
Funding from the John Ellerman Foundation began in 2010 and will, over the next three years, enable Earthwatch to significantly enhance the research of our Kenyan Mangroves project. The goal of which is to quantify and attach a cost to the carbon storage value of managed mangrove plantations, including harvested stands, through a community-run, demonstration mangrove plantation.
The John Ellerman Foundation funding has already made an impact, with the development, this year of training materials to be used by all teams. But it will further enable Drs Huxham and Kairo to involve volunteers in data collection and in particular individuals from local communities, who are stakeholders of future community-run mangrove plantations. Training provided through this grant will also make it possible for participants to identify supplementary opportunities as they materialise.
British American Tobacco plc
Over the past 5 years British American Tobacco (BAT) has kindly sponsored 170 places on the Capacity Development Programme.
BAT also sponsor projects set up to conduct research on Belarus Wetlands, Southeast Asian Bats, and provide significant funding to the Mount Mulanje Ecological Survey.
See the Capacity Development Case Studies page for more information on the Southeast Asian Bat Conservation project.
Programme Evaluation
Get more info on Earthwatch’s partnership with BAT
McCrae Fund
In 2010 the McCrae fund sponsored one emerging scientist from Madagascar to receive training in a wide variety of tasks including checking traps, processing and monitoring anesthetised animals, ecological monitoring and biodiversity assessments, satellite image analysis, trail marking and mapping as part of Dr Luke Dollar’s Carnivores of Madagascar project.
Denise Mitchell Memorial Fellowship
Kindly donated by Geoff Mitchell in memory of his wife, the Denise Mitchell Memorial Fellowship aims to provide funding for one emerging scientist from a developing country to join an Earthwatch research project and gain practical hands on experiences, whilst gaining support and mentoring from an established Earthwatch scientist. This year’s recipient joined the Carnivores of Madagascar project, gaining invaluable experience working alongside Earthwatch scientist, Dr Luke Dollar.
Mitsubishi Corporation plc
Mitsubishi Corporation sponsors critical research that aims to determine the key characteristics of reef and reef-associated communities in the Seychelles, providing essential funding to Earthwatch’s Coral and Coastal Ecology of the Seychelles project. Mitsubishi Corporation are also key supporters in the development of Earthwatch’s Capacity Development Strategy over the next three years.
New to 2010, this fellowship was generously donated by former Earthwatch chairman, Herschel Post and his wife. The fellowship seeks to award funding for one emerging scientist from a developing country to join an Earthwatch research project and gain practical hands on experiences, whilst gaining support and mentoring from an established Earthwatch scientist.
This year’s winner, Toky, joined Luke Dollar’s Carnivores of Madagascar project.
“This project has given me so many experiences, especially in the field of conservation.”
More info...
Newmont Ghana Gold Ltd
Newmont Ghana Gold underwrite a number of places on the Earthwatch project Ecology and Conservation of the white-necked rock fowl in Ghana, an example of a mixed stakeholder team bringing together Capacity Development participants with Newmont employees for a mutually beneficial learning experience.
Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation
Earthwatch continues to gratefully receive grant funding from the Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation for our African training programme, Developing a New Generation of Conservation Scientists. The aim which is to train early-career conservation scientists in field research techniques, leadership, and team management skills so as to increase their capacity to contribute to international conservation research, especially through roles on Earthwatch scientific research projects.
This generous, sustained grant funding has enabled Earthwatch to develop the careers of more than twenty young conservation scientists from across Africa.
UBS
Since 2004, UBS have funded an African training programme, incorporating training grants for young African conservation scientists and a teacher training programme.
The scientist programme is providing opportunities for future conservation leaders in Africa to benefit from training in project development, field research methods, data management, report writing, leadership and team management skills. The African teacher programme engages teachers in practical training experiences, increasing awareness of sustainable development, helping them to bring the issue alive in the classroom.
To date, twenty-two recipients from six countries have received full scientist training grants, a funded GIS course has provided training for nine emerging conservation scientists and 18 teachers will have benefitted from the training by the end of the programme.
Zurich
Having played a key role in supporting the Earthwatch Mangroves of Sri Lanka project, Zurich has, since 2007, supported both employee and Capacity Development participants on this project. Zurich funding enabled the 2010 ‘National Conference on Identification of Knowledge Gaps for Sustainable Management of Mangroves in Sri Lanka’ to take place, and brought together all stakeholders - vital to the sustainable management of mangroves in Sri Lanka.