Prestigious Foundation Awards Major Grant to SavingSpecies

The Chicago-based Libra Foundation grant will support essential costs to help expand conservation organization's reach and impact. End Quote

every dime SavingSpecies raises for our projects goes directly toward land purchases and restoration

Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC (1888PressRelease) February 28, 2014 - Dr. Stuart Pimm, founder and President of SavingSpecies, announced today that the Libra Foundation has been awarded a $25,000 grant to the conservation non-profit. The foundation awarded the grant to help SavingSpecies build capacity in its conservation and restoration work.

The capacity-building grant will support staff time and operation costs to build on SavingSpecies' efforts to date with its website, social media, grant writing, public outreach and research. Through grassroots and online engagement, SavingSpecies has raised public awareness-and hundreds of thousands of dollars-to fund habitat restoration of critically at-risk fragmented, degraded tropical forests in Brazil, Madagascar, and Colombia.

Focusing its attention on "supporting innovative and effective work," the Libra Foundation is "committed to enhancing the human rights movement and broadening it to include… environmental sustainability."

Dr. Pimm said: "I am just thrilled that SavingSpecies has been awarded this generous grant, and honored to have received the Libra Foundation's confidence in our innovative and fiscally-efficient approach to highly-targeted conservation." Dr. Pimm emphasized that all donations go to conservation projects, unless otherwise specified by the donor. "As I take personal pride in ensuring that every dime SavingSpecies raises for our projects goes directly toward land purchases and restoration, this grant is particularly important," he said.

SavingSpecies identifies degraded agricultural land and restores it to connect forest fragments, protecting the world's most endangered species. The SavingSpecies Science Advisory Board provides technical and financial support to carefully selected conservation projects. These are all locally owned and managed by host country organizations, with the help of local officials, businesses and communities. The Science Advisory Board includes some of the world's most distinguished conservation biologists, including Dr. Pimm, E.O. Wilson, Tom Lovejoy, Peter Raven, Patricia Wright, and Trevor Price.

SavingSpecies currently supports a project in the Western Andes of Colombia to reconnect patches of cloud forest inhabited by hundreds of threatened species, many of which are unique to the area. These cloud forests are also home to the olinguito, a charismatic raccoon-like arboreal mammal first described in August 2013.

Dr. Pimm said that, "Without the help of our supporters, sponsors and thoughtful foundations like the Libra Foundation, we could not do our important work of healing the planet to give species a chance to survive and thereby prevent extinctions."

About SavingSpecies
Leading conservation professionals committed to preventing extinctions founded SavingSpecies in 2008. Preventing species extinctions is SavingSpecies' primary objective. SavingSpecies scientifically evaluates projects and then provides funding for land purchase via individual donors. SavingSpecies connects local conservation programs to donors, helping donors reduce their carbon footprint. The projects that SavingSpecies supports restore degraded habitats in areas of the world's greatest biological richness. SavingSpecies clearly distinguishes all donations for project work from those needed to support administration and operations. SavingSpecies is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization, and all donations to SavingSpecies are tax-deductible.

Media Contact
Roger Harris, Board Secretary
919 662 1618
rharris ( @ ) savingspecies dot org
www.savingspecies.org

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