The Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) has announced a five-year, $7 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in support of deep-ocean conservation in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) and Galapagos.

The grant—$5 million from the Bezos Earth Fund and $2 million from the Moore Foundation—will be used to advance in-country exploration and research on deep-water habitats and seamounts within the ETP to engage and inform better management of multi-country deep-ocean seascapes. Researchers from Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Panama as well as the global deep-water community will collaborate to improve critical knowledge of deep-ocean ecosystems in existing, newly established, and potential deep-water marine protected areas (MPAs) in the ETP. To be based at the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos Islands, where a deep ocean exploration facility will be established, the project team will work closely with MPA managers to increase representative deep-water habitat protection across national Exclusive Economic Zones.

“Great strides have been made at national levels to safeguard areas of outstanding biological importance in the ETP, and several world-renowned marine protected areas have been created in the region spanning Galapagos (Ecuador), Cocos (Costa Rica), Coiba (Panamá), Malpelo, and Gorgona (Colombia),” said Charles Darwin Foundation senior marine scientist Stuart Banks. “However, we are only beginning to understand and appreciate the hidden dimensions of existing deep-water reserves and their adjacent areas.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/simonappilolla)