FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

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Requests for Statements of Interest and Qualifications for Potential Projects through the CESU Network

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Notice of Funding Opportunity - Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species

Request for Statements of Interest Number: M22AS00298

Deadline for Submissions - 29 August 2022 @ 5:00 PM ET

Eligibility - Nonfederal partner organizations in the Chesapeake Watershed, North Atlantic Coast, and Piedmont-South Atlantic Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU)

Project Title - AT-20-02C: Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS) III C — Photogrammetric Aerial Surveys to Improve Detection and Classification of Seabirds, Cetaceans, and Sea Turtles

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are in the process of conducting high-resolution aerial imagery surveys under the Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS). The objective of AMAPPS is to provide baseline data on regional and seasonal species abundance and distribution in the nearshore and offshore environments to aid decision-making concerning offshore development, transportation, military exercises, and conservation. The AMAPPS collaboration has entered its third phase. The overarching goal of this third phase is to develop cost-efficient remote sensing- and machine learning-based methods to survey and monitor marine birds and other wildlife to improve the quality of population estimates and distribution mapping while enhancing personnel safety. BOEM is seeking subject matter experts to classify seabirds, marine mammals and other marine wildlife to the lowest taxonomic level in aerial imagery. The primary objective of this segment of AMAPPS is to enlist expertise in marine wildlife species identification through the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) program to classify detected wildlife targets in imagery collected by AMAPPS to an appropriate taxonomic level utilizing remote access to an imagery annotation tool developed at the USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC) and implementing the annotation quality control workflow developed by USGS-UMESC, BOEM, and USFWS.

Additional details are available here (LINK).

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Notice of Funding Opportunity - MENTOR-Bat Program

Notice of Funding Opportunity Number: F22AS00398

Deadline for Submissions - 09 September 2022

Eligibility - public and private institutions of higher education; non-profit non-governmental organizations; multi-national secretariats; foreign national and local government agencies; for-profit organizations; individuals; and U.S. territorial governments;

Project Title - MENTOR-Bat Program

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is soliciting proposals for MENTOR-Bat, a global conservation fellowship program focused on the linkages between the health of bats, people, and the environment. Having co-evolved with a variety of viral pathogens, bats have become reservoir hosts to many pathogens and, therefore, live with the viruses without suffering from the effects of the disease. Disturbance to forest and cave habitats and direct disturbance to bat roosts disrupts this delicate host-pathogen balance, resulting in bats shedding the virus, potentially infecting other animals. Such disturbances may also change the bat hosts’ ranging patterns, resulting in greater contact with humans. For example, in West and Central Africa, the emergence of Ebola virus outbreaks has been associated with areas of elevated forest fragmentation (Rulli 2017). Broadly, the greater the human disturbance of bats and their habitat, the greater the risk of zoonotic disease spillover to humans. The goal of the MENTOR-Bat program is to promote healthy environments where bats and humans coexist with reduced risk of disease transmission.

MENTOR Model Description: The Service currently supports multi-year cooperative agreements to develop the capacity of conservationists through the series of USFWS MENTOR Fellowship programs. MENTOR programs establish transdisciplinary teams of emerging conservation leaders who work together to problem solve on threats to wildlife, such as the unsustainable commercial bushmeat trade and uncontrolled extractive industry exploitation, as well as species conservation focusing on pangolins, manatees, chimpanzees, and fish. For a given MENTOR program, a lead recipient organization works with the Service to further co-design the program. Teams of eight to ten MENTOR Fellows are identified and assembled to participate in rigorous academic and field-based training that emphasizes technical conservation skills, as well as team building, conflict management, environmental governance, outreach, and leadership. Training occurs through a combination of virtual and in-person learning. Fellows learn adaptive management in order to design pilot conservation projects, which they then work as a team to implement in 8-12 months. Fellows work with technical and capacity development Mentors who help them to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. At the end of the 18-month program, Fellows earn a post-graduate certificate, diploma, or degree from a national or regional university or college.

This funding opportunity solicits proposals for co-developing a MENTOR-Bat fellowship program. This funding opportunity will award a single cooperative agreement with an expected period of performance of two to three years and a range of $300,000 to $500,000 USD per year and covering multiple countries.

Additional details are available here (LINK).

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Additional Notifications of Funding Opportunities

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No opportunities at this time.

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* Additional Requests for Statements of Interest and Notifications of Funding Opportunities will be posted here as they become available.