The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund 2024

The Mohamed Bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund is an endowment that promotes species conservation worldwide headed by Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the current ruler of Abu Dhabi and President of United Arab Emirates.

Through innovative micro-financing, the MBZ Fund empowers conservationists to fight the extinction crisis instead of bureaucracy and red-tape. To date the Fund has awarded over 2000 grants to a diverse range of species across the world.

The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund is a philanthropic endowment established to do the following:

• Provide targeted grants to individual species conservation initiatives
• Recognize leaders in the field of species conservation; and
• Elevate the importance of species in the broader conservation debate.

The Fund’s reach is truly global, and its species interest is non-discriminatory. It is open to applications for funding support from conservationists based in all parts of the world, and will potentially support projects focused on any and all kinds of plant, animal and fungus species, subject to the approval of an independent evaluation committee.

In addition, the Fund will recognize leaders in the field of species conservation and scientific research to ensure their important work is given the attention it deserves and to elevate the importance of species in global conservation discourse.

As of September 2019, the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund has supported 1,982 projects with $18.5 million dollars. Over the past several years, the fund has provided an average of an additional $1.5 million dollars each year to as many as 200 projects.

There are many examples of its grant recipients rediscovering ‘lost’ species including a frog species in Zimbabwe known as the Cave Squeaker (Arthroleptis troglodytes) which had not been seen in 55 years and the Cropan’s boa (Corallus cropanii) in Brazil which had not been seen in 64 years.

Many grant recipients have discovered ‘new’ species including a species of wood lizard Enyalioides binzayedi was discovered through the support of the fund to the expeditions leading to the discovery of the specie in the Cordillera Azul National Park in Peru; and in 2017, a rare and majestic species of maple tree was discovered and named Acer binzayedii through the support of the fund and found in the mountainous cloud forest of Jalisco in Western México.

As of September 2019, 825 grant recipients have highlighted their projects through case studies published on the MBZ Fund website.

During 2023, the Fund will be trialling a process whereby the Fund will award grants for the conservation of threatened soil species.