DEADLINE: $20,000 Grant for Reporting on the Next Big Idea for Forest Conservation

Mongabay's non-profit arm launched a new journalism program that funds in-depth or investigative reporting on key environmental topics. The first reporting opportunity under the Special Reporting Initiatives (SRI) program is titled: Innovation in tropical biodiversity conservation. While deforestation rates have slowed and areas under protection have increased in recent decades, global biodiversity continues to decline at alarming rates. We are - as biologists have long been warning us - in the midst of Earth's sixth mass extinction. In tropical forests, biodiversity conservation has seen a number of innovations in recent decades: land purchasing programs, sustainable development of non-timber forest products, debt-for-nature swaps, forest certification systems and commodity roundtables, indigenous parks guards, and payments for ecosystem services (PES) like carbon (REDD+) and water.

Mongabay.org will commit up to $20,000 to fund the top proposal: $15,000 as a stipend and up to $5,000 for reporting and travel costs. The fellow, who will be selected by an independent panel that consists of six journalists and issue-area experts, will have three months for travel and research and three months for writing. He or she can work from anywhere in the world. Deadline is September 30, 2013.

Read more here.