Mohamed bin Zayed Species project number 202525582

Financial resilience during Covid-19 to conserve endangered species and critical habitats in biodiversity hotspots of India.

The overall objective of this project is to sustain the conservation activities targeted towards endangered species and habitats across India's biodiversity hotspots. Our work, be it reducing the harvest of critically endangered marine and freshwater species or enabling coexistence between the endangered Asian Elephant and people in the western and eastern ghats, involves implementation of on-ground ecological and conservation action with local community participation. Presently, we work with 300 fishermen to promote "shark-friendly" fishing practices; we engage with 1000 farmer households in 10,000 sqkm of elephant habitat; and approximately 300 households along the Tuivang river, a tributary of the Chindwin River. Maintaining our field conservation activities during the first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic, during the economic downturn, proved crucial in preventing unregulated habitat destruction and overharvest of species. Therefore, our continued presence at these sites is critical to establish these behavioural changes among communities for our conservation objectives to be fulfilled. This grant will ensure that we can continue to engage with local communities. Additionally, it will help us make progress with our field based conservation initiatives across our field sites.