UK charity the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is recognising seven outstanding conservationists with 2025 Whitley Awards and £400,000 ($529,000) in funding to sustain their work to revive wildlife species in Rwanda, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Nepal, Indonesia and Malaysia.

At a time when governments are cutting overseas aid, the funding will help to ensure a future for species and their broader ecosystems, including jaguars, Bornean elephants, brown spider monkeys, Javan gibbons, the El Rincón stream frog, Grey Crowned Cranes, as well as Yew trees and orchids.

UK charity, the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN), is recognising Nepal’s Reshu Bashyal with a 2025 Whitley Award for addressing the illegal trade in orchids and yews in the country, which has been driven by soaring international demand for their medicinal and ornamental properties.

UK charity, the Whitley Fund for Nature, is recognising Indonesia’s Rahayu Oktaviani with a 2025 Whitley Award for her work to protect the Endangered Javan gibbon on Java, one of the most densely populated islands on earth where less than 10 percent of forests remain.

UK charity, the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN), is recognising Dr Federico Kacoliris with a 2025 Whitley Award for his work to expand protection for the most threatened amphibian in Argentina: the El Rincón stream frog.

UK charity, the Whitley Fund for Nature, is recognising Dr Farina Othman with a 2025 Whitley Award for her work to save the last 300 Bornean elephants in the east coast of Sabah State in Malaysia’s Borneo amid shrinking habitat for the world’s smallest elephant.

UK charity, the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN), is recognising Dr Olivier Nsengimana with the 2025 Whitley Gold Award for his leadership in rebuilding the Grey Crowned Crane population in Rwanda and for an ambitious plan to secure protection across East Africa for the iconic bird and its wetland habitat.

UK charity, the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN), is recognising Brazil's Dr Yara Barros with a 2025 Whitley Award for her work to protect jaguars in Iguaçu National Park in the Atlantic Forest, where populations are growing and her team is teaching local communities how to co-exist with the apex predator.

UK charity, the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN), is recognising Dr Andrés Link with a 2025 Whitley Award for his work to protect brown spider monkeys in the lowland rainforests of central Colombia and to scale his work by reconnecting the species’ fragmented habitat in private protected areas.

UK charity the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is recognising Kuenzang Dorji from Bhutan with a Whitley Award for his work to protect Endangered Gee’s golden langur in the East Himalayas and his solutions for local farmers whose crops the primates are targeting as climate change drives a shift in their behaviour.

UK charity the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is recognising Raju Acharya from Nepal with a Whitley Award to bolster protection for owls in central Nepal after spearheading a government-backed ten-year plan to safeguard the birds which had been overlooked from conservation efforts.

UK charity the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is recognising Aristide Kamla from Cameroon with a Whitley Award for his landmark work to restore the habitat of the African manatee in Lake Ossa. The marine scientist has become the country’s foremost specialist in the mammal, addressing threats to its freshwater habitat from rapidly expanding invasive species and pollution.

UK charity the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is recognising UK charity the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is recognising Naomi Longa from Papua New Guinea to expand her work to monitor and manage coral reefs in the biodiversity hotspot of Kimbe Bay and to further extend her female-driven marine conservation model in local waters of the Coral Triangle, home to 76 percent of the world’s coral reef species.

UK charity the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is recognising Fernanda Abra from Brazil with a Whitley Award for her pioneering work to build and monitor low-cost canopy bridges over Highway BR-174 in the Amazon rainforest in a project she plans to scale for widespread adoption to protect tree-dwelling mammals from road impacts.

UK charity the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is recognising Leroy Ignacio from Guyana with a Whitley Award for galvanising one of the country’s first Indigenous-led conservation movements and to strengthen protection for the Red Siskin, a small Endangered finch which has become a flagship species for conservation in the rapidly developing rainforest nation.

UK charity the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is recognising Dr Purnima Devi Barman from India with the 2024 Whitley Gold Award for her work to save the Greater Adjutant Stork – known locally as Hargila - whose numbers have quadrupled in Assam to more than 1,800 thanks to a dynamic campaign she masterminded and which she is expanding to include 20,000 women.

UK charity the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is recognising seven outstanding conservationists with 2024 Whitley Awards for leading their communities in saving some of the world’s most fragile ecosystems and for their innovative solutions to the threats to nature in India, Brazil, Bhutan, Papua New Guinea, Guyana, Cameroon and Nepal.