Grant Guidelines

Tracking Kelp Forest Conservation Outcomes and Benefits

The Kelp Forest Alliance (KFA) is dedicated to protecting and restoring 4 million hectares of kelp forest ecosystems by the year 2040, herein, the Kelp Forest Challenge.

It is imperative that we not only track our progress towards achieving this goal but also share information between projects and celebrate the benefits that are created by kelp forest conservation (both protected forests and restored forests).

The KFA maintains a community based and freely available database for uploading these data. Through this database, the KFA also provides monitoring standards to help ensure data quality and control.

This grant is intended to encourage projects to upload data and share information about the outcomes of their kelp conservation projects.

Eligible Activities

This grant is open to new or ongoing projects which have worked or are working to protect or restore kelp forests. Projects must be ongoing or have been completed within the last 4 years. A typology of eligible activities can be found here.

Who Can Apply?

Any legally incorporated body in any eligible country may apply. Including but not limited to NGOs, government groups, community groups, businesses.

Who Cannot Apply?

Individuals are not eligible to receive the grant.

Funding Available

The grant will provide one project with 3,000 AUD.

Grant Requirements

To be eligible for this grant, projects must

• Upload project data to the KFA platform; for one or more sites between 11/12/2025 and 31/12/2026
• Maintain an active account on the Kelp Forest Alliance community
• Meet the minimum data requirements (Appendix 1)
• Submit a 1-page summary of how the funds were used once completed
• Projects must have the rights to upload their data

Eligible Spending

Grant funds may be used to support kelp forest conservation efforts or to increase awareness about kelp forests. Eligible costs include;

• Salaries, materials, or expenditures required to protect or restore a kelp forest
• Materials or salary for communication campaigns Ineligible costs include;
• Capital expenses which are not used in the lab or field
• Travel for scientific conferences - Food or drink expenditures
• Operational overhead that would have occurred regardless

Selection Process

A project will be selected by a random draw and will be notified within 4 weeks of the closing date. The selected project will then be asked to submit a 1-page summary of how the funds will be used to ensure eligibility. Summaries will be reviewed by the KFA within 2 weeks of submission and approved funds will be transferred within 2 weeks after that.

How To Upload

All data is to be submitted through the KFA web platform, a tutorial is available here.

Contact & Support

All questions may be directed to kfa@kelpforestalliance.com, or through our Contact page.

Appendix 1: Data Completeness

To be eligible for this grant, project data must meet a minimum level of completeness. Specifically, projects must provide data on the below to be eligible.

• Target kelp genus or genera
• Relevant dates and locations
• Project size (i.e., area, m2)
• Relevant indicators (kelp density, biomass, etc) before and after intervention
• Project costs
• Lessons learned from your activity
• Associated biodiversity data if applicable

We further encourage projects to complete as much of the data template as possible. The more data we are able to collect the better we can track global outcomes, inform policy, and celebrate kelp forests.

Appendix 2: Data Upload Tutorial

A tutorial for how to upload data to the Kelp Forest Alliance data platform is located here.

Users Guide to the Kelp Forest Alliance Community Platform

How to use the Community Platform