ERF announces new and renewed grants supporting marine conservation, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity protection

The Ecological Restoration Fund (ERF) has awarded a series of new and renewed multi-year grants supporting marine conservation, ecological restoration and biodiversity protection. The funding will support work ranging from sustainable fisheries management and ocean governance to large-scale habitat restoration, migratory species protection and landscape-scale conservation.

New grants have been awarded to Rare, Oceana and Blue Marine Foundation to strengthen marine conservation and fisheries governance:

• Rare has received £3 million over three years to expand its Fish Forever programme across Indonesia, the Philippines, Guatemala, Mozambique and The Bahamas. This programme strengthens community-led fisheries management, managed access areas, no-take marine protections and habitat restoration, including mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass ecosystems. The grant will also support the rollout of Rare’s monitoring and evaluation framework and strengthen in-country technical and policy capacity.
• Oceana, which has contributed to the protection of more than 10 million km² of ocean habitat globally since 2001, has been awarded £2.8 million over three years to strengthen campaigns to restrict industrial bottom trawling in UK Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). The grant will also help Oceana to defend the EU Common Fisheries Policy from political and legal weakening, and advance fish stock recovery in the Western Mediterranean.
• And Blue Marine Foundation has received £1.5 million over three years to advance investigative, legal and media-driven campaigns designed to expose harmful fishing practices, and drive reform in fisheries governance in the UK and internationally. The campaigns will focus on restricting bottom trawling in UK MPAs, addressing overfishing and inequity in the UK fishing sector, exposing harmful fisheries subsidies, and strengthening conservation measures within Regional Fisheries Management Organisations.

ERF has also renewed two major grants supporting large-scale restoration and flyway conservation:

• BirdLife International has received £7.5 million over three years to strengthen protection and restoration along the African–Eurasian Flyway, one of the world’s most important migratory bird corridors. ERF’s previous support helped strengthen protection at key sites, secure UNESCO World Heritage status for Sierra Leone’s Gola Rainforest National Park, mobilise €19 million for habitat restoration, and establish a major long-term flyway-scale investment initiative with the World Bank, linking biodiversity conservation to sustainable development for the millions of people who depend on healthy flyway ecosystems for food, water, and livelihoods. The renewed grant will support habitat restoration and protection work in Romania, Bulgaria, Iraq, Jordan, Uganda, Malawi and Zimbabwe, alongside efforts to grow nature-based economies and jobs. It will also strengthen rapid-response action against harmful developments, and help operationalise the ground-breaking collaboration between BirdLife and the World Bank.
• Rewilding Chile has been awarded £5 million over five years to expand ecological restoration efforts across Patagonia and the wider Andean Corridor. Over the past several years, and with the help of ERF’s first grant in 2023, the organisation has helped secure more than 140,000 hectares for Cape Froward National Park, supported an 8-million-hectare conservation corridor Route of Parks of Patagonia, and led pioneering species recovery and monitoring initiatives. The renewed funding will support ecological connectivity, protected area management, scientific and technical capacity, and cross-border collaboration across Chile, Argentina, Peru and Colombia.

Together, these grants reflect ERF’s continued support for long-term conservation approaches that combine ecological restoration, biodiversity protection, community stewardship and stronger environmental governance across some of the world’s most important and vulnerable ecosystems.