We’re delighted to announce that we’ve just awarded over £25,000 to 13 marine conservation projects through our Autumn Main Grants programme. They include:
Projects right across the UK , from Skye in Scotland to the Isles of Scilly off the tip of Cornwall.
Projects seeking to engage and involve all kinds of communities and people in marine conservation issues and solutions, including businesses, teachers, school children and young people.
Direct action activities to clean up key coastal environments, including those that are not easily accessible.
Applying new ways to connect people and educate them about the marine environment including, for example, the use of new technologies like VR.
Supporting citizen science projects to gather data about key marine species and ways to take action on climate change.
A wide variety of projects have been allocated a grant of up to £2,500. Here are some of them:
Corelate Communication CIC - will run a business engagement project across Thanet aiming to prompt behaviour change to stop the flow of plastic.
International Otter Survival Fund - Team Otter Broadford - will help children engage with wildlife and the environment; take part in campaigns; and increase the environmental health of Skye.
KP Projects - the grant will extend the tour of a VR artwork enabling viewers to explore and interact with the unique, but inaccessible, marine environment of the Beachy Head Marine Conservation.
Manx Whale and Dolphin Watch - will be running fortnightly sea watches between April and September 2023 from a popular coastal vantage point on the Isle of Man.
Marine Conservation Society (MCS) - will be engaging young people with marine policy through Sea Scotland conference youth events.
Plymouth Environmental Action (PEA) - Project Plastic is being run to educate volunteers about marine plastic and its impact on local marine life.
Seaweed Gardens - a community of creative active citizens will be researching seaweed and growing it as a way to take action on climate change and to protect the coastal environment.
Techniquest - will undertake work to enable pupils from schools in disadvantaged areas to access subsidised visit to Techniquest that will include an interactive lab session on plastic in the ocean. 270 pupils from 9 schools will be the success metric.
Under Open Sky - will run Coasters, a coastal nature-connection programme for adults. This multidisciplinary project explores relationships to the changing coastal ecosystem through arts, creativity, wellbeing and citizen science activity and helps to nurture nature-connection.
Weymouth and Portland Marine Litter Project - The beach along the Fleet is only accessible on foot from each end making traditional beach cleans impractical. So, our plan is to take to the water and ferry volunteers and litter by boat up and down the Fleet from Ferrybridge