Save Our Seas Foundation announces a record 61 grants for 2021

After a bleak year, with ongoing Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and increasing threats to our oceans, we could do with good news. As the Save Our Seas Foundation (SOSF) celebrates its 18th year dedicated to protecting life, especially sharks and rays, in our oceans, the Foundation has found hope in its biggest-ever cohort of grant recipients. The organisation continues to invest in research, conservation and education projects, albeit with experience now gained and looking ahead to its evolving conservation strategy in our changing world. This year, the Foundation exceeded its average of 50 projects funded annually by announcing 61 grant awards for 2021 and received a 50% increase in applications for its keystone grants. Never before has the number of grant applications been so high: an optimistic indication that despite the mounting challenges, there is willpower to turn the tide in the conservation sector. From researchers harnessing citizen science to solve local problems, to projects that meet current conservation crises with cutting-edge technology, this year’s grant recipients span all seven continents and embrace a new era of innovation, communication and compassion.

Learning to listen, and to incorporate existing local knowledge, is important to Ilse Martinez, one of 22 Small Grant recipients for 2021. Working with fishers around the largest coastal lagoon in south-east Mexico to glean insights from their lived-experiences, Ilse’s project demonstrates one of the Foundation’s philosophies of fostering awareness beyond the boundaries of traditional scientific publications. Other Small Grant recipients, like Fabio David Cuello Mercado, are also emphasising an inclusive approach: he is training local personnel to save Critically Endangered largetooth sawfish off the coast of Colombia.

Our oceans are getting noisier and busier as ocean animals compete with us for sea space. Jeremy Kiszka is one of 24 new Keystone Grant recipients for 2021 and he is monitoring blue whales and other cetaceans visiting Seychelles. When do they visit, and why? Jeremy spends hours observing whales and dolphins from a boat to document their behaviour, where they move and what they do. He uses their calls to identify whether they’re feeding or mating, and where they come from, hoping to identify important areas to protect for Seychelles’ cetaceans.

Some Keystone Grant recipients, like Demian Chapman, are tackling the illegal trade in ‘rhino rays’: the guitarfishes, giant guitarfishes and wedgefishes nicknamed for their pointy snouts and Endangered status. He is developing DNA tools to help border control officers in Hong Kong to identify illegal shark products. Others, like Aristide Takoukam Kamla, are visionary in their quest to gather information for regions where we know little of sharks and rays. Aristide has created a citizen science platform and mobile app for fishermen across Cameroon’s 400 km coastline to record sightings of marine life: the information he gathers will be some of the first for the region.

‘Our newly expanded network of grant recipients represents some of the most creative minds working in marine conservation around the world,’ says Dr James Lea, the SOSF’s chief executive officer. ‘As a collective, project leaders have focused their work primarily on shark, skate, ray and sawfish species, many of which are listed as Endangered and continue to feel intense pressure from human activities worldwide.’

The Foundation continues to fund the SOSF D’Arros Research Centre in Seychelles, the SOSF Shark Education Centre in South Africa and the SOSF Shark Research Centre in the United States of America. Its long-standing partners – the Bimini Biological Field Station Foundation, Manta Trust, North Coast Cetacean Society, Shark Spotters and The Acoustic Tracking Array Platform – all received renewed funding. Continuity, long-term monitoring and collaboration remain at the core of these relationships.

‘Our innovative range of projects for 2021 gives me great cause for optimism at a time when we need to rethink our relationship with the environment,’ explains the Founder of the SOSF, His Excellency Abdulmohsen Abdulmalik Al-Sheikh. ‘When we most need hope, it is humbling to support such passionate individuals who can envisage healthy oceans and a sustainable future for sharks, rays – and ultimately – ourselves.’

Whether better protecting baby scalloped hammerhead sharks in their nursery grounds like Kelly Kingon, gathering data on sharks in Congo like Phil Doherty, or diving in to protect deep-sea sharks in fishing grounds like Sofia Graca Aranha Ramos, all 2021 Project Leaders join the almost 400 projects funded in more than 80 countries around the globe since the Foundation’s inception. They passionately uphold the Founder’s wish to make a lasting impact on the health of our oceans and ultimately for every person on the planet. To learn more and follow project news, visit the Project Leader story section here and follow the SOSF on social media.

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Founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2003, the Save Our Seas Foundation (SOSF) is a philanthropic organisation whose ultimate goal is to create a legacy of securing the health and sustainability of our oceans, and the communities that depend on them, for generations to come.

Its support for research, conservation and education projects worldwide focuses on Endangered sharks, rays and skates. Three permanent SOSF research and education centres reinforce its actions in Seychelles, South Africa and the USA.