Western Hemisphere Regional

The mission of the Latin America Regional Program is to provide technical and financial assistance to partners to conserve the region’s priority species and their habitats. It advances its mission by supporting projects that reduce threats to key wildlife species and strengthen local capacity that results in measurable conservation impacts that benefit biodiversity and its people in the long-term.

The program targets projects that clearly articulate how the proposed actions will reduce the threats of unsustainable resource use, habitat loss and fragmentation, agricultural expansion, and/or human-wildlife conflict under at least one of the following categories:

Species Conservation: This category seeks to support projects that promote the recovery and conservation efforts of key terrestrial species and their habitats along their range. Proposed activities can be implemented on the local, national, or regional (transnational) level, and can involve more than one priority species. Species should meet the criteria to be listed either as “Endangered” or “Threatened” on the ESA, or as “Critically Endangered,” “Endangered,” or “Vulnerable” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Species listed as “Data Deficient” or “Extinct in Wild” on the IUCN Red List are not eligible under this NOFO.

Conservation Stewardship: This category seeks to support projects that assist communities living in and along critical wildlife corridors and strongholds, by building on their traditional land-use practices, governance principles, ethnobiological knowledge and reduce their costs of living with wildlife. Proposed activities can be implemented on the local, national or regional (transnational) level.

Projects are to be implemented in or around natural protected areas, biological corridors, and recovery units in: Mexico, Central America, and South America.

Applicants under this program can be multi-national secretariats, foreign governments, U.S. and foreign non-profits, non-governmental organizations, community and Indigenous organizations, and U.S. and foreign public and private institutions of higher education.

Individuals are not eligible to apply under this Notice of Funding Opportunity. In addition, tuition for individuals and field expenses for projects carried out in support of masters, doctorate degrees, and post-doctorate research are not eligible under this Notice of Funding Opportunity.

Projects are reviewed and competitively selected for funding using criteria articulated in the Notice of Funding Opportunity. Review criteria can be found in the application information. Once a proposal has been selected for funding, an approving official executes an Assistance Award between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Recipient.

Decisions on funding of project proposals are normally made no later than 180 days after the receipt of the project proposals.