Neptune Endowment
We are currently within the ‘Ocean Decade’ – a critical time between 2021 and 2030 for global action to save our ocean, as identified by the United Nations.
Donations to the Neptune Endowment now will provide committed funding over this period towards effective, locally-led conservation in regions (primarily Southeast Asia, Melanesia, and the East Indian Ocean) where threats of marine destruction are high but funding is not reflecting the growing needs.
How the endowment supports marine conservation
In 2023, the world’s governments pledged to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030 and adopted a new High Seas Treaty. But to achieve meaningful change during the ‘Ocean Decade’ – these upcoming years when it matters the most – we will need to scale up ocean protection by more than three times in only seven years.
It is possible. Annual philanthropic funding for marine area-based conservation has nearly tripled in the past decade, to USD 122 million in 2022. But even greater investment is required to meet the amounts required to truly protect this vital ecosystem while we still can.
A concern is also that, if the philanthropic support is scaled up, these funds will not be channeled into the community-led work which is embedded in the local context, with the risk that the work will not truly include community engagement and collaboration, therefore having a shorter lifespan and potentially alienating local people.
The expendable endowment model will ensure that donations are maximised over this crucial period, spending down the capital over the Ocean Decade and beyond while the targeted 4-8% return extends the impact further.
The Ocean Endowment aims to:
Grow donations over time
Unite donors
Provide core funding
“One of the first things that I found was that gaining trust of people is not something that you get in a year or two. It’s something that takes time, something that takes consistency. It took me four years before communities would listen to what I was saying. Today we mobilise 10 tribes across over 50 villages to work with the conservation of 6 species of turtles, 41 species of sharks and rays, two dolphin species and one just recently documented whale species.”
Yolarnie Amepou, Piku Biodiversity Network Director
Sustainable funding for the Ocean Programme
Synchronicity Earth has funded ocean work since 2010. It launched a revised and expanded Ocean Programme in 2021, with a broader strategy, specifically to increase support for locally-led groups and in the first year brought on board 10 new partners, distributed over USD 640,000 in funding, and supported work which reached over 6,250 people in training, engagement or environmental education.
The Neptune Endowment supports our Ocean Programme, specifically two key areas of marine conservation funding which are critically underfunded:
“I want to create a legacy and develop an approach where collaboration between conservationists and fishing communities is meaningful, and they have the power to voice their own agendas, their visions of what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. After all, if we do not have their input, and as a result they do not have the capacity to adhere to the laws marine conservationists are putting in place – economically, traditionally, culturally – at the end of the day, even the best solutions will fail.”
Alifa Haque, Bengal Elasmo Lab Director
Partners benefiting from the endowment
Responding to increased support: a plan for growth
Since its launch in 2022, the Neptune Endowment has grown from GBP 275,000 at 2022 year-end to GBP 393,000 at 2023 year-end (43% growth). As more funders join the endowment and the annual capital withdrawal increases year on year, we will be expanding the range of projects receiving grants, focusing on the following key areas of work:
Locally-led initiatives
Holistic habitat restoration
Research and mapping
Small-scale fisheries management initiatives
Regeneration and celebration of cultural practices
Community rights to use and manage marine areas
Donate to the Neptune Endowment
If you are interested in making a donation which will strengthen global efforts to protect the ocean in this critical period of history by contributing to the Neptune Endowment, please contact our Philanthropy team.