(4 minute read)
Published: 24 December 2024
Written by: Sufina Ahmad, Director and Sophia Cooke, Environmental Sector Programme Lead at the Environmental Funders Network
This blog was a joint blog between John Ellerman Foundation and the Environmental Funders Network. It was first published to the EFN website on 1 December 2024 and can be read on their website by clicking here.
The unique and irreplaceable UK Overseas Territories
The UK Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are arguably the UK’s most important environmental treasures. Scattered across the globe, they are home to every major habitat type on earth, including rainforest, tundra, desert, coral reef, and icefield. These areas are crucibles of evolution, housing at least 94% of the UK’s unique wildlife species and comprising the fifth-largest marine estate on the planet. Nature exists in the UKOTs at an unimaginably vast scale. If you care about our planet and are seeking to respond to the nature and climate crises, then the UKOTs matter. For example:
- The Caribbean UKOTs, including the Cayman Islands, Anguilla, and the British Virgin Islands, host vibrant coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass beds that protect coastlines, store carbon, and support globally significant marine biodiversity.
- The mid-Atlantic islands of St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha, and Ascension are havens for unique wildlife, such as the critically endangered St. Helena olive tree, the endemic wirebird, and vast seabird colonies, including the yellow-nosed albatross and Ascension frigatebird.
- The Falkland Islands host some of the largest penguin colonies on Earth, including five species, such as the iconic king and rockhopper penguins.
Despite their ecological significance, the UKOTs are often overlooked in global conservation efforts. International funders may consider them the responsibility of UK funders, and UK funders might not realise they can support work in the UKOTs. Their small populations and geographic isolation make it difficult for local organisations, run by passionate environmental experts, to access the resources needed to protect these ecosystems. Threats from climate change, invasive species, and habitat degradation are growing, yet the UKOTs still receive just 0.03% of UK philanthropic funding.
The UKOTs Fund: A model for strategic conservation
John Ellerman Foundation has taken a bold and inspiring step to address this funding gap by creating the UK Overseas Territories Fund (UKOTs Fund). This collective and strategic initiative is not just about providing financial support – it’s about creating lasting change, supporting activities including:
- Practical conservation: Funding projects that directly protect and restore habitats and species, such as safeguarding seabird nesting sites or restoring degraded wetlands.
- Capacity building: Strengthening local NGOs to ensure sustained conservation efforts beyond the life of individual projects.
- Policy and advocacy: Facilitating the creation of robust legal frameworks to protect biodiversity.
- Land acquisition: Purchasing land with high conservation value to ensure its permanent protection, rather than for financial or speculative purposes.
This holistic approach ensures that funded projects deliver immediate benefits while laying the groundwork for sustainable, long-term conservation.
The UKOTs Fund also fosters collaboration, creating a network of stakeholders and enabling funders to work together. As highlighted in EFN’s recent report Increasing the effectiveness of environmental funder-fundraiser relationships, such partnerships are vital for amplifying the impact of environmental philanthropy.
Proven success: The impact of the UKOTs Fund
The UKOTs Fund has distributed over £1.8 million over two funding rounds, supporting work in ten of the UKOTs. A review by EFN and John Ellerman Foundation – The UK Overseas Territories Fund: An unparalleled opportunity for environmental philanthropy – highlighted its significant achievements, with findings including:
- The Fund has catalysed urgent conservation activities such as invasive species eradication, habitat restoration and the protection of both marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
- Specific achievements include the creation of coral biobanks in the Turks and Caicos Islands, the creation and expansion of national parks in the Falkland Islands and Anguilla, and groundbreaking research on whale sharks in St Helena.
- Funding has also bolstered the capacity of local environmental organisations, enabling them to deliver more impactful and sustained conservation efforts, and leverage further funding.
- Grant-holders highlighted the ease of interacting with the UKOTs Fund and its flexibility, particularly in providing much-needed core cost funding, rarely available from other sources.
A call to action for funders
These successes are just the beginning. John Ellerman Foundation aims to launch a new funding round in 2025, a move strongly supported by EFN’s review findings. A new funding round would not only sustain the momentum of current projects, and allow scaling of efforts, but would also provide opportunities for other initiatives across the UKOTs. Going beyond 2025, If the UKOTs Fund were to evolve into a long-term initiative, its potential impact would be unparalleled.
The cost-to-impact ratio shown by the UKOTs Fund has also demonstrated the potential for relatively modest investments to yield substantial conservation benefits in these biodiversity-rich regions. As such, it provides a unique opportunity for funders at all scales to make a meaningful difference. The due diligence work undertaken by John Ellerman Foundation also means little research time is needed on behalf of contributing funders. For any funder looking to help protect globally significant ecosystems and at-risk species, joining the contributor base for the UKOTs Fund is therefore an obvious, strategic and efficient choice.
‘I often wonder, when is the work of independent philanthropic institutions and individuals at its best? I believe it is when we work together to step in and step up. When we come together to shine a light on something not just deserving of our attention but quite frankly demanding of it.’ – Sufina Ahmad, John Ellerman Foundation