Biodiversity Story Grants from Earth Journalism Network (EJN) 2024 (Up to 12,000 EUR)

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About Biodiversity Story Grants from Earth Journalism Network (EJN)

Earth Journalism Network (EJN) is offering reporting money to support the publication of in-depth articles that explore novel conservation-based solutions or identify globally unreported hazards to biodiversity.

In order to empower individuals to make educated decisions about how to effectively address the causes of biodiversity loss, and to raise public awareness of the importance of biodiversity concerns, the media plays a critical role.

Through financing from Arcadia, a philanthropic foundation founded by Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, EJN is helping journalists worldwide produce fact-based, captivating stories for their home audiences by offering story grants through the Biodiversity Media Initiative.

Story Themes:

Pitch ideas for ambitious stories that leverage cutting-edge multimedia, collaborative, cross-border, or investigative tactics to extend coverage of biodiversity or conservation subjects are welcome for this grant opportunity. They also encourage proposals that make use of geojournalism and data journalism.

They would want to support the following themes this year, while they are not exclusive to:

• Underreported incidents of the trade and trafficking of threatened species of plants and animals, as well as their effects
• Challenges to species diversity that are new or little understood, such as seabed mining and cryptocurrency mining
• New techniques to monitor environmental offenses such illicit mining and logging, as well as other factors contributing to the decline of biodiversity
• Creative, perhaps scalable conservation strategies run by organizations, governments, or communities
• Initiatives to strengthen the “green” and “blue” economies in order to promote environmentally conscious development
• Novel or suggested regulations that may have a negative or positive impact on biodiversity
• Urban areas’ biodiversity and conservation
• Systems for funding the preservation of biodiversity, like biodiversity credits
• Benefit-sharing from digital sequencing data: opportunities and concerns

Candidates that plan to track and assess the promises made by the Global Biodiversity Framework in the run-up to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP), which will be held in Colombia in October 2024, will receive special consideration.

Proposals that center on subjects or narratives that have not received much media attention are favored, as their goal is to increase awareness about emerging risks and potential solutions on a global scale. Topics that are overly covered in the media or don’t offer novel perspectives are unlikely to be chosen.

 

• Sponsor Organisation: Earth Journalism Network (EJN)

Benefits of Biodiversity Story Grants from Earth Journalism Network (EJN)

• Grants of between 10,000 and 12,000 EUR will be awarded to the most deserving applicants to assist initiatives aimed at enhancing media coverage of biodiversity-related issues.
• The main goals of projects should be to produce in-depth articles, run training sessions for media outlets and journalists, or establish networks of journalists.
• The award should pay for project costs, and equipment financing might also be included. Furthermore, co-financing is welcomed but not necessary.

Biodiversity Story Grants from Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Requirements

• While journalists from any country are welcome to apply, for the purposes of this grant request, they are only accepting proposals for stories that are centered on the nations listed here.
• Applicants from nations where they have not previously awarded grants are welcome to apply. Applications from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Kyrgyzstan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other countries in West Africa, Central America, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe are especially encouraged.
• Online, print, radio, and television journalists as well as other seasoned media professionals with backgrounds in environmental reporting and investigative reporting are welcome to apply.
• They want to help journalists who are just starting out in their careers as well as seasoned reporters with years of experience. Freelancers and employees of all kinds of media organizations—global, national, local, and community—are encouraged to apply.
• They will accept applications from individuals as well as groups; however, for the latter, they ask that the application be submitted under the name of a single lead applicant who will, should the grant be granted, collect the award on behalf of the group.
• If applicants are determined to have participated in unethical or improper professional conduct—including, but not limited to, plagiarism and/or submitting content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) as their own—EJN has the right to exclude them from consideration.

Selection Criteria:

When crafting their narrative proposals, applicants had to take into account the subsequent factors.

• Relevance: Does the proposal satisfy the call’s requirements and goals? To whom and why does this tale matter? Is the primary concept, background, and overall significance for the intended audience well-defined?
• Angle: If the news has already been reported by the mainstream media, does your suggestion give a novel viewpoint or new insights into the subject?
• Impact: Does the proposal have an engaging story or investigative component that will educate and captivate readers, spark discussion, and inspire action?
• Creative storytelling: Using multimedia, data visualization, and inventive techniques will be seen favorably.

Documents Requirement:

• As per the application rules, applicants must provide a project plan, supporting documentation, and a thorough budget justification. Everything ought to be written in English.

Application Date and Process

• To apply, you must first create an account, click the apply now button below to create an account.
• You can select “Save Draft” if you wish to start the application and finish it later. You must go back to the opportunity and click “Apply now” once again to complete the application. After doing so, you may go back to the draft.
• Applications should include a signed letter of support from their editor explicitly stating that the media outlet will publish the stories produced as a result of this grant, two samples of stories or links to pertinent work, a detailed budget with justification for the amount requested, and a detailed budget.

Note: Once you begin the application process, you will be prompted to upload the supporting papers mentioned above, so please be prepared.
To know more about the application process, kindly refer here.

Application Deadline

05 May, 2024

Scholarship Application Portal

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