About the Program
The Conservation Trust is a grant program that supports innovative solutions to conservation challenges and issues of global concern. The Trust encourages projects that engage and inform their areas’ local population with the potential for global application. Projects that hold potential as media subject matter are also encouraged, as National Geographic’s vast audience offers our grantees opportunities to make a broad public impact.
Program Background
By the end of the last century, the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration had distributed more than 170 million dollars in research grants worldwide. But as the new century dawned, National Geographic recognized the need for a new kind of grant program, one with a special emphasis on conservation. In March of 2001, the Conservation Trust gave its first grant—to botanist Nalini Nadkarni for her unique, outreach-oriented forest canopy studies. The Conservation Trust has awarded 212 grants since its inception in 2001, totaling 6.4 million dollars. The Trust awarded 15 grants in 2011 at a total of $250,914.
Featured Projects
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Elephant Voices
By protecting the elephants of the Masai Mara and sharing her experiences with others, Joyce Poole aims to bring about respect for nature.
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Real-Life Lorax
Dr. Seuss's tree-loving Lorax used to say, "I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues." It turns out National Geographic has its own Lorax: Meg Lowman, who is currently working to conserve forests in Ethiopia.
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Pygmy Tarsier or Gremlin?
It may look like a gremlin, but this 2-ounce (57-gram) animal is actually a pygmy tarsier, rediscovered by grantee Sharon Gursky in Indonesia.
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"Extinct" Frogs in Honduras
Grantee Jonathan Kolby found a rough-skinned frog species thought to have gone extinct more than 20 years ago.
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Borneo's Orangutans
Biological anthropologist Cheryl Knott wonders if the orangutans she studies deep in Borneo's rain forest are destined to vanish from the wild forever.
National Geographic Initiatives
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Grants for Northern Europeans
The Global Exploration Fund establishes local support for research, conservation, and exploration projects.
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DEEPSEA CHALLENGE
Follow the expedition as Explorer-in-Residence James Cameron attempts to reach the deepest place on Earth.
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