Money and services

Prizes, awards and competitions

What you can enter or be nominated for. Check which ones take an application, because many do not.

• Whitley Awards

  £50,000 each to six conservation leaders working in their own country. You do not need to be nominated, you apply

• Future For Nature Award

  €50,000 each to three young conservationists. Open application

• St Andrews Prize for the Environment

  $95,000 to the winner and $20,000 to each runner-up. Open to individuals, organizations and community groups

• Rolex Awards

  Five laureates a year across environment, science and exploration. Open to anyone 18 or over, now annual rather than biennial

• Explorers Club grants

  Six named grant programs with live deadlines, from $1,500 to $10,000, plus rolling Impact Grants

• WILDLABS Awards

  $360,000 across 16 conservation-tech projects in 2026. Anyone can submit the first-stage expression of interest

• National Geographic Society grants and Wayfinder Award

  Explorer grants are the open-application route; the Wayfinder Award is by selection, not application

• Goldman Environmental Prize

  $200,000 each to six grassroots activists, one per world region. Closed to unsolicited nominations

• Indianapolis Prize

  $250,000 biennially, nomination only, but the Emerging Conservationist award for under-40s takes direct applications

• Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement

  $250,000, nomination only. The 2026 laureate won it for work on mycorrhizal fungi

• Blue Planet Prize

  Two laureates a year at 50 million yen each, roughly $340,000. Nominated by designated nominators

• Earthshot Prize

  £1,000,000 to each of five winners, one being Protect and Restore Nature. Nominated through official nominator organizations, several of which run public expressions of interest

• Tusk Conservation Awards

  £225,000 across three awards including a ranger award, paid to the winner's organization over three years. Africa only

• UNESCO Sultan Qaboos Prize

  $100,000 for environmental conservation. Nominated by governments or NGOs in official relations with UNESCO, no self-nomination

• MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity

  Biennial biodiversity prize run with the CBD Secretariat, and nominations come in through the website

• Seacology Prize

  $10,000 to an islander for preserving island environments and culture. The nomination route is not published, so ask them

• Ashden Awards

  Up to £40,000, free to enter. Mostly clean energy, but the Tropical Forest Protection category is a real fit

• Disney Conservation Hero Awards

  $1,000 per hero. Only nominable by nonprofits Disney already funds, so useful if you are one and not otherwise

• Xerces Deborah BanDrosky Award

  Student research award of about $5,000 for any declining invertebrate, from fireflies to freshwater mollusks. New in 2026, applications open each November

• Xerces Joan Mosenthal DeWind Award

  Two student awards a year of about $5,000 for Lepidoptera conservation. Applications open each November

• Royal Entomological Society Insect Conservation Award

  £400 for insect and invertebrate conservation, and self-nomination is accepted. The live successor to the discontinued Marsh insect award

• Behler Turtle Conservation Award

  $5,000, treated as the top award in turtle and tortoise conservation. Nominated by specialist group members

• ASA Future Leaders of Amphibian Conservation

  Course fees, conference travel and project grants up to about $5,000 for early-career amphibian conservationists. Open application

• Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle Prize

  CHF 5,000 for the best monographic treatment of a plant group, and fungi and lichens count. Has no permanent page, so the link moves each cycle

• Marsh Award for International Plant Conservation

  Plant conservation award run with Botanic Gardens Conservation International. Nominated through the BGCI network

• Marsh Charitable Trust awards

  Thirty-plus awards, unusually dense in invertebrates and plants: entomology, four Lepidoptera awards, botany, marine and freshwater. No cash values published

• David Fairchild Medal for Plant Exploration

  $5,000 every three years for plant exploration and rare plant conservation, next in 2027. Same page carries two student scholarships

• GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge

  €20,000 prize pool for tools built on GBIF-mediated data. Call opens early in the year, closes late June

• Wildlife Photographer of the Year

  £10,000 to the grand title winner. Entry fee is waived for under-26s and for residents of fifty listed countries

• BigPicture: Natural World

  $5,000 grand prize plus category prizes, and exhibition at the California Academy of Sciences. Entries close in early March

• Wildscreen Panda Awards

  Recognition rather than cash across 18 categories of conservation film and media, including a Digital-First category

• Jackson Wild Media Awards

  Conservation film and media awards. Recognition rather than cash on the main awards

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