The JRS-Tusk Partnership will support Tusk’s platform of innovative joint initiatives across sub-Saharan Africa, building capacity and fostering collaboration for biodiversity conservation. Through strategic grants, the partnership will provide field partners with essential resources including equipment, training, mentoring, and collaborative biodiversity data exchange opportunities.

With comprehensive material support and capacity building in species assessments and biodiversity data management, project leaders will generate evidence-based insights to sustain ecosystems in key protected areas. The data collected will contribute to a broad network of conservation collaborators, reaching scholarly institutions, advocacy organizations, regional media, and policy-making bodies. This approach ensures that compelling conservation information reaches the decision-makers who shape biodiversity policies.

The JRS capacity-building grants will be administered by Tusk’s experienced Programs team, who will provide clear guidance to partner organizations for sound implementation. The Tusk-vetted partner organizations will use funds to plan, train, initiate, or enhance their field data collection, analytics, information management, and reporting capabilities to strengthen conservation strategies in areas of critical biodiversity.

The four identified projects for this grant will be:

Friends of Bonobos (Dem. Rep. of Congo)
Summary: The Congo River Basin is the second largest freshwater basin in the World, and a global biodiversity hotspot. The Cuvette Central, a low elevation peatland/rainforest mosaic, is one of the most diverse ecoregions within the basin. It harbors many endemic species, among them the threatened bonobo (Pan paniscus), one of our closest relatives. In an effort to protect this species from extinction and reintroduce individuals rescued from poaching and rehabilitated at Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary, the Ekolo ya Bonobo Community Reserve (EBCR) was established by Congolese organization Les Amis des Bonobo du Congo (ABC) near the town of Basankusu. The reserve extends over 47,500 hectares (~117,000 acres (and growing) of lowland rainforest, including aquatic ecosystems such as extensive peatlands, swamps, and complex river networks. However, little is known about the overall taxonomic diversity present in the reserve, especially its freshwater fish diversity and abundance. This proposal seeks support for new areas of biodiversity data collection as a basis for long-term monitoring. Support will also support capacity-building to ensure the local team has adequate resources to effectively collect, record, and process data.

OLEO (Gabon)
Summary: OELO is a Gabonese NGO with a mission to conserve biodiversity and ensure ecosystem services in the Bas Ogooué lake region by mobilizing and supporting local communities. With this funding opportunity, the team proposes to:
Train local data collectors from lakes Adolet, Ezanga, Gomé and Onangué by organizing a 5-day workshop in Lambaréné Gabon, with existing data collectors from Oguemoué cooperatives and technical partner Aquatic Ecosystem Services (AES), administrative partners (DGPA and DGEA) and local students. The OELO field team will expand community-led data collection into lakes Adolet, Ezanga, Gomé, and Onangué to gather baseline data to inform future fisheries management plans. A key output will be the creation of a web-based platform to share data, making it readily accessible for all partners.

Dahari (Comoros)
Summary: Dahari’s forest programme works to restore the forests of the islands of Anjouan and Grande Comore in the Comoros archipelago to ensure the conservation of endemic biodiversity and the maintenance of watershed services for local people. The Comoros have suffered from one of the highest deforestation rates in the world in the past fifty years, with Anjouan losing 80% of its natural forests between 1995 and 2014. In the Moya forest Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) on Anjouan Dahari is piloting a locally-adapted conservation agreements programme with 40 farmers who have put their upland fields into fallow in order to conserve and restore natural forest. Funding will continue and evaluate the impact of the scheme on deforestation using satellite imagery (in association with academics from the University of Oxford), and will assess the impact of the scheme on water provisioning services as well as to identify critical hydrological areas together with experts from Kings College London. This information will be combined with existing data including multi-taxa biodiversity assessments and detailed analyses of the ecological needs of the Critically Endangered Livingstone’s fruit bat to prioritize forest areas to conserve and restore. On Grande Comore Dahari has undertaken five years of studies in the La Grille forest KBA. In order to finalise a forest conservation strategy funding will support forest mapping (in partnership with the University of Oxford), and undertake an initial hydrological analysis to understand the link between forest and water provisioning to local people. Dahari team members will be trained in field data collection and data management in order to ensure ongoing evaluation of impact of the project for forest and water health. The results of the work will feed directly into discussions about conservation priorities with farmers in both KBAs, and will be disseminated to national stakeholders.

The Pangolin Project (Kenya)
Summary: The goal of this project is to Establish a biodiversity centre of excellence in the Nyekweri Ecosystem, which lies to the west of the Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) within the Greater Mara Ecosystem (GME). It is a remnant Congo-Guinean forest mosaic of hardwood species interspersed with savannah glades. The area is highly fertile and receives over 1600mm of rainfall a year. It is the water shed for the Migoris River that serves over 1 million people in western Kenya and supports microclimates and rainfall generation for the savannah of the Greater Mara and Serengeti Ecosystem. Despite its biodiversity value and proximity to the Maasai Mara National Reserve, the Nyekweri Ecosystem was never gazetted for protection. Until 2000 the forest was held under community land tenure but since then the area has been sub-divided and the last block was allocated in 2023. The area of interest – a 69,160 acre area – is now subdivided into 2170 land parcels. The land parcel sizes vary greatly from 4 to 750 Ha each. The project will utilize funds to expand the capacity and skills of The Pangolin Project monitoring team to better measure biodiversity across the area and the impact of conservation and restoration efforts on forest cover and overall biodiversity.

Sarah Watson has dedicated over two decades to conservation in Africa, joining Tusk 24 years ago to organise the charity’s annual marathon in Kenya. Today, she serves as Tusk’s Chief Conservation Officer, having played a central role in transforming the organisation from a small UK-based charity into a globally recognized conservation leader with a footprint across 27 African countries. She has driven strategic growth, raised over $25 million for ranger-led initiatives, and overseen more than 70 community-led conservation projects. Sarah pioneered Tusk’s conservation strategy, launched the Tusk Conservation Awards and Symposium, and developed systems for effective grant-making and impact tracking that have helped scale best practices continent-wide. Sarah holds a BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences from the University of Bristol and an MSc (Distinction) in Biodiversity, Wildlife and Ecosystem Health from the University of Edinburgh. She works from an office at the bottom of her garden on the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, surrounded by her children, dogs, cats, snakes—and the occasional rhino. Her latest passion is ultramarathon running—her self-declared escape from emails.

Dan Bucknell is Chief Operating Officer for Tusk, where he has been since 2014. He began working in conservation in Cameroon, first at the Limbe Wildlife Centre in 2000, and then as a research assistant for the Cross River Gorilla Research Programme in 2002. From 2002-2009 he worked for the Gorilla Organization, initially as Grants Manager, and then as Regional Programme Manager. From 2009- 2014 he was Head of Conservation and Campaigns at Elephant Family, working to protect the Asian elephant and its habitat.