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Biodiversity Story Grants 2026
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The scale of the biodiversity crisis is profound. The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) 2024 Living Planet Report documented a 73% collapse in monitored wildlife populations over just 50 years—with freshwater species down 85%—while the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List now shows more than 48,600 species are threatened with extinction. From the mass bleaching of coral reefs to the destruction of intact forests, the drivers of loss are accelerating, and the systems underpinning human life are being degraded along with them. If the world continues on this trajectory, nature will be damaged to an irreversible degree.
Yet the global economy is still overwhelmingly fuelling the crisis rather than reversing it. The UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) State of Finance for Nature 2026 report found that for every $1 the world invests in protecting nature, it spends $30 on destroying it—with $7.3 trillion flowing into nature-negative activities in 2023 alone, against just $220 billion directed toward nature-based solutions.
On the policy front, the road to recovery is still being built. Following the partial breakdown of COP16 talks in Cali in late 2024, resumed negotiations in Rome in February 2025 produced an agreement to mobilise $200 billion per year for biodiversity by 2030—but deep gaps in ambition persist. Many countries have yet to submit revised national biodiversity action plans, and more than half of those that have submitted them have failed to align them with the Global Biodiversity Framework, as required. With COP17 scheduled for October 2026 in Yerevan, Armenia—the only global review of progress before the framework's 2030 deadline—the need to move from pledges to meaningful, measurable action has never been greater.
Despite the scale and urgency of the problem, biodiversity issues receive substantially less coverage in the media than other threats and are regularly pushed to the sidelines of trainings on environmental issues.
To ensure that local audiences have access to trusted, timely and accurate information on the current critical state of biodiversity, Internews’ Earth Journalism Network’s (EJN) Biodiversity Media Initiative is offering 5-10 story grants to increase the quality and quantity of biodiversity coverage, and to highlight the overwhelming threats to our natural world as well as promising or proven solutions.
In addition to funding, selected journalists will receive support from experienced mentors throughout their project.
Yet the global economy is still overwhelmingly fuelling the crisis rather than reversing it. The UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) State of Finance for Nature 2026 report found that for every $1 the world invests in protecting nature, it spends $30 on destroying it—with $7.3 trillion flowing into nature-negative activities in 2023 alone, against just $220 billion directed toward nature-based solutions.
On the policy front, the road to recovery is still being built. Following the partial breakdown of COP16 talks in Cali in late 2024, resumed negotiations in Rome in February 2025 produced an agreement to mobilise $200 billion per year for biodiversity by 2030—but deep gaps in ambition persist. Many countries have yet to submit revised national biodiversity action plans, and more than half of those that have submitted them have failed to align them with the Global Biodiversity Framework, as required. With COP17 scheduled for October 2026 in Yerevan, Armenia—the only global review of progress before the framework's 2030 deadline—the need to move from pledges to meaningful, measurable action has never been greater.
Despite the scale and urgency of the problem, biodiversity issues receive substantially less coverage in the media than other threats and are regularly pushed to the sidelines of trainings on environmental issues.
To ensure that local audiences have access to trusted, timely and accurate information on the current critical state of biodiversity, Internews’ Earth Journalism Network’s (EJN) Biodiversity Media Initiative is offering 5-10 story grants to increase the quality and quantity of biodiversity coverage, and to highlight the overwhelming threats to our natural world as well as promising or proven solutions.
In addition to funding, selected journalists will receive support from experienced mentors throughout their project.
Program Specification
For the purposes of this grant call, we are only accepting applications for stories focused on countries classified as low- or middle-income (which includes upper-middle income countries) by the World Bank. Those countries are listed here, though journalists from any country can apply.
We would like to hear from applicants based in countries in which we have not offered grants to previously. We encourage applications in particular from Central America, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southwest Asia and specifically from the following countries: Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Bolivia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Rwanda, Mali, Niger, Chad, Sudan, and Somalia
We are especially interested in supporting projects in biodiversity-rich regions of the world, or projects in countries facing unprecedented biodiversity loss.
Groups of journalists are eligible.
We would like to hear from applicants based in countries in which we have not offered grants to previously. We encourage applications in particular from Central America, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southwest Asia and specifically from the following countries: Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Bolivia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Rwanda, Mali, Niger, Chad, Sudan, and Somalia
We are especially interested in supporting projects in biodiversity-rich regions of the world, or projects in countries facing unprecedented biodiversity loss.
Groups of journalists are eligible.
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