ANNUAL REPORT 2025
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
November 2025 marked our tenth anniversary! We at PONT are extremely proud what we have jointly achieved with our partners over the last decade. We celebrated this with an article dedicated to transhumance and the important role shepherds play in biodiversity conservation. The article is part of the Living Legacy series, a powerful branded content series presented by International Union for Conservation of Nature produced by BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions.
“Shepherding is not just a profession, it’s a way of living that revolves around the natural cycles,” says Trajçe.
Another major highlight was the launch of the PONT Connect initiative and its related strategy on connectivity conservation. We managed to raise some unrestricted funding from one of our donors, which will help us to support essential transboundary activities related to connectivity conservation or other urgent conservation actions. We commissioned legal studies regarding ecological connectivity to help our partners to better understand and identify how they can influence policies that are relevant to this topic. From forestry to pasture management, water, and inspection services, and most of all spatial planning and Environmental Impact Assessments related to new developments.
To learn more about the topic of integrated landscape management we organised a Training of Trainers for Albanian partners in cooperation with the Dutch foundation Commonland. In the frame of PONT Connect we explored the importance of conflict sensitive planning in conservation together with the Swiss foundation PeaceNexus. As a general approach we try to facilitate an increased exchange and learning between our various partners. We are proud of the diversity and richness of our network.
We continued with the consolidation of our grant portfolio and the further improvement of a more performance-based system to allow for guidance and informed decision-making in the awarding of follow-up grants. New tools measuring the impact of the grants are actively being used by our beneficiaries. We try to learn more about success factors through the use and analysis of data stored in our database. Some of the results are captured in this annual report.
We continue our efforts with a highly motivated and professional team. We hosted several donor and board visits and are delighted PONT’s work is so valued. The KFW evaluation team visiting Galicica and Pelister National Parks was impressed by the PONT support with both parks abandoning commercial logging as its main source of finance. Without the support of PONT this would not have been possible. We congratulate Ljuboten Mountaineering club with their 100th anniversary which was celebrated in 2025.
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IMPACT
In 2025, PONT disbursed €3.43 million in grants (€1.23 million for 10 PA grants and €2.2 million for 26 EA grants).
PROTECTED AREAS
NATURA 2000 SPECIES
NATURA 2000 HABITATS
ENDEMIC SPECIES
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EMERGING IMPACT TRENDS
PONT's APPROACH
As a trust fund, PONT’s approach to conservation differs from the standard “project based” or “short-term” solutions. PONT’s funding is long-term and focused on key conservation actions in the biodiversity rich mountains and lakes bridging Albania, Greece, and North Macedonia. It is designed to ensure the sustainable management of the Prespa-Ohrid, Korab-Shara, and Albanian Alps regions, including ecological corridors between these areas. Our model emphasises long-term commitment, transparency, efficiency, accountability, and collaboration.
PONT's PROGRAMME
We have two funding programmes:
- PONT enables protected areas in the PONT Focus Area, to develop and implement their management plans to conserve nature through sustainable co-financing of operational costs.
- PONT provides grants to environmental actors who are qualified not-for-profit organisations implementing conservation actions in the Prespa-Ohrid, Korab-Shara and Albanian Alps regions, including ecological corridors between these areas.
PONT supported 36 grants in 2025 (10 grants for protected area management authorities managing 11 protected areas and 26 grants for environmental actors).
CONSERVATION CONNECTIVITY
Protected areas are central to PONT’s approach. To be effective, though, protected areas need to be of sufficient size and ecologically connected to one another and the larger landscape. The areas which provide ways to identify, maintain, enhance, and restore ecological connectivity are called Connectivity Conservation Areas (CCAs) or ecological corridors. Ecological corridors are not a substitute for protected areas but complement them, especially in regions where additional protected areas are not possible, and/or connectivity is required to support biodiversity and ecological processes of the existing protected areas. Ecological corridors facilitate adaptation to changing environmental conditions, such as climate change. The ecological corridors and protected areas they connect make up an ecological network. We are proud of the pioneering work done by our partners.
2025 RESULTS AND HIGHLIGHTS
KEY MESSAGE: Strategy, guidance, collaboration, and shared learning: important actions for conservation and restoration.
“This Forum marks a renewed commitment to transboundary rivers that connect, sustain people and nature, and inspire across borders. For the Aoos River, we are hopeful that it will be protected more effectively from now on, through fruitful cross-border collaboration, the active participation of local communities, and the adoption and implementation of a strong institutional framework” (Alexis Katsaros, Executive Director of MedINA)
ECOLOGICAL CORRIDORS
GREEN BUSINESSES
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EXPENDITURE OVERVIEW
Grant Expenditure 2025
RISKS MANAGEMENT
In 2021, we started a risk register which is updated annually. With the additional sinking fund contributions from KfW/BMZ in 2021, the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation in 2022 and 2025, and the FFEM in 2025, we have secured long-term financing stability for our current commitments. This will help us maintain our endowment capital and continue providing support to the protected areas and environmental actors including conservation actions along key ecological corridors. We continue improving procedures and workflows for our growing grant programme and investment portfolio. The implementation of the PONT Environmental Social Management System helps us to minimise any reputational risk, or any negative impact caused by PONT.
FINANCIALS
Total assets as of December 31, 2025 are €73.5 million. The increase of €3.26 million compared to December 31, 2024 is mainly due to new donations by FFEM and Hans Wilsdorf Foundation in 2025. The endowment capital from “German Financial Cooperation (“GFC”), MAVA and the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation remained unchanged at €30 million. MAVA Foundation, GFC, Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, and FFEM made contributions to PONT’s funding capacity reserve totalling €58.55 million (of which €6.6 million from MAVA, €43 million from GFC, €7.5 million from Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, and €1.45 million from FFEM). The funding capacity reserve contributions were made as “sinking funds” to be spent until 2030 for MAVA, 2040 for GFC and the initial donation from Hans Wilsdorf Foundation. The new 2025 donations by FFEM and Hans Wilsdorf Foundation can be spent until 2030 and 2035. After the utilisation in 2025 of the sinking funds as described in the discussion of the income statement below, a balance of €40.8 million remained at the end of 2025 (€1.7 million in the MAVA sinking fund, €30.6 million in the GFC sinking fund, €7 million in the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation sinking fund, and €1.45 million in the FFEM sinking fund).
In line with the prior year, the miscellaneous provisions amounted to €145.039 reflecting outstanding invoices for consulting and other services in connection with investment advisory, custody fees, accounting, financial statements, and audit. The asset side of the balance sheet reflects a division between investment securities (€60.4 million) and cash (€10.7 million).
The Financial Statement 2025 will be published when the 2025 audit report is finalised by PONT’s independent auditor expected in mid-2026. A summary of the 2025 Financials is provided in the full PONT Annual Report 2025 which can be downloaded below.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank the Sigrid Rausing Trust for providing us with four years of unrestricted funding and also thank them for their invaluable contribution and trust in PONT.
Under the leadership of David Morrison, the pro-bono contribution of our investment committee members (Al Breach, Johan Holgersson, Ronald Kent, Alessandro Manghi and Hanna Loikkanen) remains invaluable. PONT would like to thank all of them for their contribution.
We would also like to thank all our cooperation partners for their co-financing contributions and technical inputs.
PONT's 2025 Annual Report: 10 years of conservation impact