Indo-Pacific Cetacean Research and Conservation Fund

The Indo-Pacific Cetacean Research and Conservation Fund (IPCF) is a contestable grant program administered by the Australian Marine Mammal Centre (AMMC) on behalf of the Australian Government. The Fund aims to attract high quality, innovative and relevant research projects that address research and conservation challenges of interest to the Australian Government, developing countries in the Indo-Pacific Region and the cetacean research and conservation community more generally. The fund comprises approximately AUD$100,000 for the 2010 funding round.

The overall aim of the IPCF is to:

Promote positive conservation outcomes for cetaceans in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean regions by supporting priority cetacean research and related activities that are consistent with priorities of Australia and for the Indian and South Pacific Ocean regions.

Specifically, the objectives are:

1. to build a stronger scientific base for cetacean policy and conservation in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly within developing countries 

2. to deepen the pool of academic expertise about cetaceans within developing countries in the Indo-Pacific region that have traditionally received relatively less research attention 

3. to contribute to cetacean research efforts for the global public good 

4. to develop partner country capacity to solve local cetacean research, conservation and management issues 

5. to foster linkages that encourage solutions to cetacean research and conservation challenges

For further information on the IPCF, please email the AMMC Coordinator at ammccoordinator@aad.gov.au.

 

Applications

For further information about the IPCF and applying for grants please consult the IPCF guidelines. All applications must be on the approved IPCF Expression of Interest template. Please consult the SPREP Whale and Dolphin Action Plan 2008-12 and/or the Lankanfinolhu Declaration 2009 when developing applications.

All applications will be considering and reviewed by the IPCF Steering Committee. 

Please note that the IPCF is open to applications from not-for profit organisations from both inside and outside Australia that meet all the criteria outlined in the IPF Guidelines. When reviewing the guidelines, "international organisations", should be interpreted as organisations based outside Australia rather than organisations with offices in more than one country. 

 

2010 Funding round

Please note that applications for the 2010 IPCF are now closed.

The IPCF Steering Group identified some high priority research and conservation areas for the 2010 IPF grant round. As stated in the IPCF guidelines, preference will be given to applications that address these high priority areas but applications that cover other areas will also be considered. These high priority research and conservation areas are listed below (all of equal priority):

1. Investigate potential impacts from human activities that capture or kill cetaceans, including bycatch, drive fisheries or the captive dolphin trade. A focus of such work should be mitigation management.

2. Investigating the impacts of whale watching and whale swimming programmes, with a focus on improving best practice.

3. Supporting the development of management plans and strategies with focused and demonstrable outcomes.

4. Monitoring depleted cetacean populations, with links to potential management actions. 

Twenty eight expressions of interest (EOIs) were received from 19 countries/territories (Australia, Bangladesh, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, France, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaysia, New Zealand, Niue, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Island, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga) and, after review by the Steering Group, nine EOIs were selected to provide full applications. Of these nine full applications, the Australian Marine Mammal Centre was able to fund four high quality projects.

On the 5th June 2010, Environment Protection Minister, Peter Garrett, announced that the new Indo-Pacific Cetacean Research and Conservation Fund will provide $228,000 for four three-year projects in the waters off Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Fiji and Bangladesh. The following projects have been funded:

• The development of a long-term cetacean conservation and management plan that will increase knowledge of the diversity of cetaceans in Papua New Guinea. This project will undertake whale surveys in the Bismarck Sea and will help develop the practical field research skills of Papua scientists.

• Surveys that will aid the conservation of whale and dolphin populations in the North Arabian Sea, along the Balochistan Coast in Pakistan determining their abundance, diversity, and seasonal habitat use. The surveys will help in managing threats to cetaceans in this region.

• A study that will document the migration patterns of endangered Oceania humpback whales in Fijian waters and establish a long-term dataset for monitoring trends in humpback whale migration.

• A study that will assess the abundance, ranging patterns, habitat selection and fisheries interactions of Indo-Pacific humpback and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in coastal waters of the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh.

“As well as delivering important whale science, all these non-lethal projects have a particular focus on capacity building and support for conservation management in developing countries.

“Projects like these demonstrate once again that in the 21st Century we no longer need to kill these magnificent creatures to learn more about them,” he said.

 

2011 funding round

Dates for the 2011 funding round will be announced soon. 

Last updated: 28 July 2010