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PSGB Conservation Grant

PRIMATE SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN CONSERVATION GRANT

Primate Society of Great Britain (PSGB) and Born Free Foundation offer an annual £1,500 grant to support primate range state nationals working with threatened primates.

Through this grant for work on endangered primate research and conservation, Born Free has supported many young career conservationists in their hopes to help threatened wildlife.

Over the years, our support has contributed to the study and protection of a wide variety of species, including the red-bellied guenon, the white-thighed colobus, olive colobus, Barbary macaques, mandrills, Preuss’ red colobus, western chimpanzees, the Caquetá Tití monkey, and the spider monkey.

Applications for 2025 have now closed – please keep checking this page for further announcements.

MEET OUR 2025 PSGB WINNER!

Born Free is pleased to announce that the 2025 winner of the PSGB Conservation Grant is Julius Kizito.

Julius is working with communities on the Ssese islands to tackle human-wildlife conflict. His community outreach work will assess attitudes towards vervet monkeys with the aim to foster a more peaceful coexistence between farmers and vervets.  

READ MORE ABOUT JULIUS’S WORK

I am committed to protecting primates and their habitats. My long-term career goal is to create practical solutions to negative human-primate interactions. I want to help develop sustainable strategies that address the critical threats primates face – such as habitat loss – through engaging with local communities and policymakers.

Julius Kizito

Previous Winners

A man with binoculars around his neck, sitting in front of a river

NICOLAS GOROSTIAGA

Our 2024 awardee was Nicolas Gorostiaga, whose research Argentina aimed to understand the influence of a dramatic yellow fever outbreak in 2008-2009 on the demography and the genetic variability of black-and-gold howler monkeys. His results will be used to advocate for habitat protection and conserving primate populations at risk of yellow-fever.
Head shot of Camille Wekesa

CAMILLE WEKESA

The 2023 grant was awarded to Camille Wekesa from Ontulili Primates Protection (OPP). OPP's main aims as a community-based organisation are to restore the riverine habitat along the Ontulili river, in Nanyuki, Kenya, educate the local community about human-primate coexistence and instil a love of nature, the environment and primates/wildlife to the next generation of young Kenyans through art education and creativity.
Tekou Ngunte Herve crouching amongst small crops

TEKOU NGUNTE HERVE

Tekou Ngunte Herve works to protect mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) in Campo Ma’an National Park, Cameroon, by halting deforestation and degradation of their habitat, and tackling hunting and the bushmeat trade. “The grant enabled us to conduct critical field surveys, strengthen community-based conservation education, and implement strategies that directly involved local stakeholders in primate habitat protection. It also helped us to build trust and collaboration with local communities, reinforcing the importance of coexistence and biodiversity preservation.”
Eduardo Pinel standing on a path in a forest

EDUARDO PINEL

The 2021 Conservation Grant was awarded to Eduardo Pinel, from Honduras, to fund a study into spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) in Mexico. “Thanks to the support of Born Free and PSGB, I was able to start my project focused on understanding the importance of spider monkeys in forest regeneration in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and at the same time evaluate the importance of these forests for the long-term conservation of the monkeys. I have also been able to meet very kind people with a great ancestral knowledge of the area and nature and visit incredible places.”
Two white thighed colobus monkeys sat next to each other, the one on the right looking at the one on the left

RAIMI CHABI OTA

In 2019, Raimi Chabi Ota used the grant to conduct conservation education in schools, hold community outreach sessions and meet with stakeholders to develop a primate tourism project to protect white-thighed colobus in northwestern Benin. This project led to a decrease in illegal activities in the area, a reduction in the forest being used to dump rubbish and a Women’s Environment Club being created.
Laura Suárez head shot

LAURA SUAREZ RAMIREZ

In 2018, Laura Suarez Ramirez was awarded the PSGB Grant for her work on Colobus (Plecturocebus caquetensis), in Colombia. “Thanks to the grant, I managed to get the first record of a primate of the Amazon called Miller's saki, (Pithecia milleri) and it was published in the journal Neotropical Primates. I am deeply grateful to Born Free. From the grant, not only did I manage to contribute a little to the conservation of a threatened species of my country, but I also grew professionally and was filled with courage to fight for my desire to study, conserve and learn from primates.”
Paul Tehoda head shot

PAUL TEHODA

Paul Tehoda was awarded the Grant in 2017, to fund his project on western chimpanzees in the Bia Conservation Area, Ghana. “The grant I received in 2017 was a stepping stone to strong foundation I have established in primate research and conservation in Ghana. This award was the first primate research grant I received to conduct an independent survey on the western chimpanzee in the Bia Conservation Area in southwestern Ghana. The grant helped leverage three additional funding grants later in the same year. The grant broadened my horizon in modern research techniques and paradigms in primate survey and conservation and positioned me to become a leader in western chimpanzee conservation in Ghana.”
A Preuss's red colobus sat in a leafy tree

ALEXANDRA HOFNER

Alexandra Hofner studied Preuss’s red colobus monkeys (Piliocolobus preussi) in Cameroon, where the grant supported her to study species density, habitat use and cultural significance in 2016. Preuss’s red colobus are Critically Endangered and only live in Cameroon and Nigeria.
An olive colobus monkey sitting on a tree branch

MARIANO GBOJA HOUNGBEDJI

Mariano was awarded the grant in 2015 to study three threatened species of primates: red-bellied guenons (Cercopithecus erythrogaster), white-thighed colobus (Colobus vellerosus) and olive colobus (Procolobus verus) in the Lokoli forest and continues to dedicate his efforts to primate conservation in Benin today.
A macaque sat on a hilltop in Morocco

MOHAMED ELAMINE BENRABAH

In 2015, we supported Mohamed Elamine Benrabah to conduct a large-scale population survey of Barbary macaques in Algeria, where the previous population study had been nearly 30 years ago. The results from this study were included in Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus) conservation plans in Algeria.