2017
Annual Report

About CEPF

Biodiversity—the rich array of life on Earth—is fundamental to human survival, but under tremendous and growing threat.

The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) was founded in 2000 to take on this challenge by empowering civil society in developing countries and transitional economies to protect the world’s biodiversity hotspots, which are some of Earth’s most biologically rich yet threatened terrestrial ecosystems.

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Countries and Territories impacted
Grantees Supported
$M
Grants Committed
$M
leveraged by those grants
M
Hectares protected areas created
M
Hectares key biodiversity areas with improved management
Globally threatened species supported
Communities directly benefited
For more information, please visit www.cepf.net.
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What Makes CEPF Unique

CEPF supports the development of conservation strategies that are driven by local input, and provides grants to civil society—nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), communities, indigenous groups, the private sector and academic institutions—to implement those strategies.

By these means, CEPF seeks to protect biodiversity, build long-term local conservation leadership and nurture sustainable development.

The conservation strategies also are designed to be valuable to other entities working to conserve the biodiversity hotspots, and often lead to collaboration and coordination with other organizations and governments.

CEPF’s investments are especially important because the biodiversity hotspots are home to more than 1 billion people, millions of whom are impoverished and highly dependent on nature for survival.

Our Grants

  • Are guided by ecosystem profiles—analyses of the biodiversity and socio-economic conditions in biodiversity hotspots—that are produced by, and in consultation with, local stakeholders and serve as regional conservation strategies.
  • Go directly to civil society groups in the biodiversity hotspots to build this vital constituency for conservation alongside governmental partners.
  • Are awarded on a competitive basis.
  • Complement governments’ efforts to meet targets related to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (the Aichi Targets), the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.
  • Create working alliances among diverse groups, combining unique capacities and eliminating duplication of efforts.
  • Achieve long-term results through an ever-expanding network of partners working together toward shared goals and enduring conservation leadership.
See Fiscal Year 2017 Project Grants

Our Donor Partners

CEPF is a joint program of l’Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, the European Union, the Global Environment Facility, the Government of Japan, the MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank.

For more information, please visit www.cepf.net.

 


Photo Credits

A man navigates the Irrawaddy Delta, Myanmar. © Olivier Langrand
Young woman with baby in Nzérékoré, Guinea. © Olivier Langrand
Forsten's tortoise (Indotestudo forstenii), Sulawesi, Indonesia. © Riza Marlon