In July, the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP) announced the winners of its 2024 Team Awards, which will provide support for 13 exceptional teams of early-career conservationists leading projects on globally threatened species (eight teams are male-led and five female-led). These local biodiversity champions will receive project funding worth a combined total of USD 212,704, thanks to support from the Hempel Foundation, the March Conservation Fund, and Arcadia—a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.

One member from each winning team will be invited to participate in CLP's international conservation leadership and management course, which will bolster trainees’ future careers by building their professional skills and peer-to-peer networks. The Programme will bring the trainees together at one location for over a week, where they will participate in practical interactive sessions focused on a variety of subjects, including leadership, project planning and fundraising, behaviour change, and gender and conservation. Upon returning home, trainees will pass on what they have learnt to their team members and other stakeholders, to extend the reach of the training. The awardees will also benefit from long-term mentoring from experts working within conservation and will join CLP's extensive global alumni network, with access to learning resources, grants and other information to sustain their future as conservation leaders.

The award-winning projects are in 11 countries in three regions: five in Asia and the Pacific, four in Latin America, and four in Africa. The successful projects will undertake research and practical conservation action to protect a range of threatened species categorized as Data Deficient, Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. These include Wolffsohn's viscacha Lagidium wolffsohni in Argentina and the guigna Leopardus guigna in Chile, the Satara gecko Hemidactylus sataraensis and Malabar grey hornbill Ocyceros griseus in India, the Sokoke scops-owl Otus ireneae in Tanzania, the lowland tapir Tapirus terrestris in Colombia, the ornate paradisefish Malpulutta kretseri in Sri Lanka, and black corals (Antipatharia) in Indonesia.

The 13 awards granted this year include two Follow-Up Awards (worth USD 25,000 each). These 2-year projects will support CLP alumni to build on their previous work and create enduring systems that ensure long-term conservation outcomes. One of these projects will expand conservation of the intermediate puddle frog Phrynobatrachus intermedius in Ghana, and the other will continue improving biodiversity conservation and management of marine protected areas in Uruguay. To view a full list of the funded projects, visit conservationleadershipprogramme.org/our-projects/latest-projects-2024.

CLP was initiated in 1985 and is a partnership between BirdLife International, Fauna & Flora and the Wildlife Conservation Society.