Application guidelines

Zoos Victoria is a not-for-profit zoo-based conservation organisation dedicated to fighting extinction.

Our pursuit of tangible conservation outcomes for threatened species includes a major focus on engaging communities (people) in ways that enable them to take action to help wildlife:

Wildlife conservation through community engagement.

Please note: preference may be given to projects that focus on species (including closely-related species) which are in Zoos Victoria's animal collection.

For more info on what is in the collection, browse the animals via these buttons:

Section 1: Zoos Victoria’s international conservation grants overview:

The International Conservation Grants target projects that focus on alleviating community-driven threats to wildlife. The project must result in measurable outcomes for wildlife, as a result of specific community action(s). The target audience (people) can be an in situ community or a community not located in the immediate locale of the wildlife. Zoos Victoria defines an in situ community as a community of local people who are directly impacted by, or directly impact a project.
 

Two project examples are listed below:

1. Threat: an in situ community in Madagascar is cutting down trees for kitchen firewood, resulting in deforestation and less habitat for lemurs; and a consequent decrease in lemur numbers.

   Behaviour change action: local communities make fuel briquettes and fuel efficient stoves.

   Measurable outcome related to people (measure of behaviour uptake), e.g. number of women using briquettes and stoves; related benefits such as income generation from sale of stoves, and increase in skills from producing own stoves.

   Measurable outcome for wildlife: decrease in amount of firewood being extracted from forest (threat reduction); increase in number of lemurs in the forest.
    

2. Threat: an Australian community has an increasing consumption of mobile phones, which leads to increase in demand for coltan (high level conductor found in many electronic devices) in gorilla habitat. This threatens gorilla populations.

   Behaviour Change Action: Recycle your mobile phone.

   Measurable outcome related to people (measure of behaviour uptake), ie. number of phones donated for recycling.

   Measurable outcome for wildlife: decrease in amount of coltan extracted from gorilla habitat. Increase in number of gorillas in coltan mining areas.

Section 2: selection criteria

• Wildlife impact must be located outside Australia. However, the target audience for the behaviour change may be located within Australia, or within the locale of the wildlife.

• Projects need to demonstrate how they are facilitating community action and/or changing behaviour in their target audience in order to alleviate threats to wildlife.
• Measurable outcomes for people and wildlife must be tangible/measurable targets, not just an “increase”. In many cases this requires projects to have baseline data to measure success against. Measurable reductions in threat are also valid measures of success.
• Projects with a conservation education focus must demonstrate tangible outcomes for wildlife - raising awareness/knowledge alone does not change behaviour.
• Project timeline must not exceed 12 months. However, Zoos Victoria recognises that some measures of success take longer than 12 months to eventuate. Please state goals of 12 month funding in the context of the project’s long-term success.
• Projects that include reintroduction or relocation processes must be endorsed by relevant government bodies.
• Project must ensure that the welfare of animals in the wild is paramount and in accordance with governing welfare agencies.

Section 3: budget - total grant money available is AUD $80,000

• Budget must be presented in AUD (Australian dollars).
• All funds granted by Zoos Victoria must be expended by 31 October in the following year.
• Funding from Zoos Victoria will not exceed AUD. 20,000 per project.
• If the budget includes salaries, Zoos Victoria will only support these for local/national organisation staff (not expatriate staff).
• Salaries must not exceed 40% of the funding requested from Zoos Victoria.

Section 4: Proposal review and timeline

Grant applications will be reviewed by Zoos Victoria’s Wildlife Conservation and Science team, made up of conservation staff with both biological science and social science expertise.

Due to coronavirus (COVID-19), we are unable to offer grants in 2022/23.

All enquiries or points of clarification can be directed to:

Mr. Chris Banks
Manager, International Conservation Partnerships 
Wildlife Conservation & Science
Zoos Victoria
cbanks@zoo.org.au