Scotts Valley, CA — Today Wise Ancestors announced being the recipient of a generous grant of nearly $800,000 from Future of Life Foundation, providing key funding to help the nonprofit continue on its successful trajectory of world-first conservation genomics research tied to support for locally-led initiatives by way of crowdfunding and collaborating in a decentralized, open scientific manner on its namesake platform.
Wise Ancestors will allocate funds from this grant to support building its community of collaborators and partners, initiating more Conservation Challenges, and honing new strategies for advancing their technology to meet the clear need for innovative, decentralized, and scalable ways of managing conservation projects. The nonprofit will also hire a Community Engagement Director to help initiate new trust-based relationships with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, a vital component of the Wise Ancestor’s model.
“We’re incredibly grateful to the Future of Life Foundation for believing in our approach on how to best address the biodiversity crisis,” said Wise Ancestors Executive Director Ann Pace, PhD. “We’re committed to not only working in partnership with Indigenous Peoples (IPs) and Local Communities (LCs) as we generate new genomic data, but also to support their initiatives on how to best steward land and restore habitats for endangered and culturally relevant species, using their Traditional Ecological Knowledge and practices. We offer a unique way of accelerating conservation genomics that honors Indigenous knowledge, practices and data sovereignty.”
This is the first grant Future of Life Foundation has given to Wise Ancestors, who is an Affiliate Project of the Earth BioGenome Project, which has been called “a global moonshot for biodiversity.”
Currently, Wise Ancestors is in the process of generating three reference genomes in addition to complementary studies for the following species:
- Critically Endangered Bermuda Cedar (Juniperus bermudiana),
- Critically Endangered Antioquia Brushfinch (Atlapetes blancae, aka Montañerito Paisa),
- An antpitta in the genus Grallaria, whose taxonomic affinities are under study.
Inline with Wise Ancestors’s model, each Conservation Challenge includes a locally-led conservation effort and is paid for by way of crowdfunding and grants. Scientists, bioinformaticians, laboratories, platforms, and biobanks are encouraged to apply to participate and receive compensation for completing elements of the research. Learn more and donate to Conservation Challenges here, or contribute to Wise Ancestors overall mission by donating here. Donations made by U.S. citizens are tax deductible.
For media inquiries, direct questions to Elizabeth Baum at elizabeth@wiseancestors.org
