The Asian Elephant Conservation Fund is a financial assistance program that supports projects that deliver measurable conservation results for wild Asian elephants and their habitats. We publish strategic geographical and thematic priorities and application guidelines in a Notice of Funding Opportunity, and evaluate all proposals through a rigorous and competitive evaluation process. Once project support is confirmed, we engage in a partnership with the grantee, providing technical support as needed, communicating on a regular basis, and playing an active role in monitoring and evaluating the project's success. This helps ensure that our limited funding is effective and enables us improve the impact of the Asian Elephant Conservation Fund through adaptive management.
Background
Through the Asian Elephant Conservation Fund, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's International Affairs Program provides financial and technical support to projects that reduce threats to Asian elephants in their natural habitats. Working closely with national governments, U.S. agencies, and a range of other partners across Asia's 13 elephant range states, we ensure a strategic, results-based approach to Asian elephant conservation. This Fund supports a wide variety of activities, ranging from anti-poaching efforts and transfrontier conservation to mitigation of human-elephant conflict and demand reduction campaigns for ivory and other elephant products. The Asian Elephant Conservation Fund solicits project proposals for the conservation of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) throughout its range.
In 1997, with awareness of the increasing threat to the welfare of the already endangered Asian elephant, The Asian Elephant Conservation Act was signed into law. The Act provides for the conservation of wild Asian elephants by supporting conservation programs in countries within the range of Asian elephants, and the projects of persons with demonstrated expertise in the conservation of wild Asian elephants. The goal of this program is to reduce threats to Asian elephants in their natural habitats. Proposals should identify specific conservation actions that have a high likelihood of creating lasting benefits. Project activities that emphasize data collection and status assessment should describe a direct link to management action, and explain how lack of information has been a key limiting factor for management action in the past. Proposals that do not identify how actions will reduce threats or that do not demonstrate a strong link between data collection and management action will be rejected.
Asian Elephant Conservation Fund Requirements
The Asian Elephant Conservation Fund recognizes the common goals and priorities of the 13 Asian elephant range state governments as stated in the Kathmandu Declaration for Asian Elephant Conservation 2022 and supports projects that promote conservation of Asian elephants and their habitats through:
- Support of protected area/reserve management and law enforcement in Asian elephant ranges;
- Applied research on elephant populations and their habitats, including surveys and monitoring;
- Activities that result in fewer wild elephants being removed from the wild, reduce demand in consumer countries for ivory and other body parts, and prevent illegal killing of elephants;
- Development and execution of elephant conservation management plans;
- Compliance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and other applicable treaties and laws that prohibit or regulate the taking or trade of elephants or regulate the use and management of elephant habitat;
- Strengthening local capacity and enhancing community engagement to implement conservation programs that enhance conservation stewardship;
- Efforts to decrease human-elephant conflict; and
- Transfrontier elephant conservation.
Eligibility
Applicants can be individuals; multi-national secretariats; non-profit non-governmental organizations; public and private institutions of higher education; U.S. territorial governments; and Tribes and Tribal organizations.
Process
All applicants must submit applications through Grantsolutions.gov. Detailed guidance on how to prepare applications is provided in the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) available online at Grants.gov and Grantsolutions.gov. The NOFO should be read carefully to ensure that applications meet all eligibility requirements and are complete upon submission.