www.mepa.ngo/funders/ · Status and budgets as of October 2026 · admin@mepa.ngo

For institutions and funders

Fund the watch. Check every claim.

MEPA is an independent, non-governmental watchdog for the Mediterranean, based in Limassol. We are building a system that finds marine pollution from space, works out who is responsible, and puts a verified, tamper-evident evidence file in front of the authority that can act.

We are at the start of this work. This page says exactly where, what we need, and how to check us.

See what we are asking for How to check our work
Where we are
At the start
Reporting and review work today. The radar pilot is not yet funded.
The ask
€119,000
A six-month pilot, from November 2026. Minimum viable: €60,000.
Independence
No funder picks our cases
Money with strings on our cases is refused. Anonymity ends where the law requires it.

Where we are

Honest about what exists.

Every capability on this site carries one of three labels. Status as of October 2026.

Working today

Reporting and review

  • A public reporting channel by email. Anyone can send a tip or a photograph, and a person reads it.
  • Manual review of reports and of open satellite data.
  • An investigations partnership with PolarVector: vessel, ownership and sanctions research, and lawful verification on the ground.

In pilot

Radar screening south of Cyprus

  • Systematic screening of Sentinel-1 radar passes over the shipping lanes south of Cyprus.
  • Analyst review of every strong detection.
  • One evidence package to a competent authority.

Under way from October 2026. The full six-month scope is funded in tranches as money arrives; the first €60,000 is the minimum for the complete pilot.

Planned

The full system

  • Dark-vessel matching against historical ship tracks.
  • Drift back-tracking to the release window.
  • Floating-litter and coastal change detection.
  • Coverage of the whole basin.

The satellite views, vessel dossiers and evidence packages shown elsewhere on this site illustrate the intended system. They are not records of past detections.

What we are not

We are not an enforcement body, and we do not accuse anyone. A detection is not proof of an illegal discharge. We put evidence in front of the authorities who decide, and we ask what they did with it.

The gap

A detection is a lead, not a finding.

In 2023, Europe’s satellite service flagged thousands of possible oil spills in EU seas. Most were not verified on site.

  1. 7,513

    Possible oil spills detected by satellite

  2. 2,464

    Verified on site

  3. 133

    Confirmed as mineral oil

EU seas, 2023. Source: European Environment Agency, from EMSA CleanSeaNet. Bars are drawn to scale.

Fewer than one in three was verified on site, and fewer than one in fifty was confirmed as mineral oil. Turning a detection into a documented case is slow, scarce work. It is the work MEPA exists to do.

Good tools already exist. We do not rebuild them.

What exists

Where MEPA fits

  • VerificationIn pilotA second look in the Eastern Mediterranean: each strong detection is checked against wind, look-alikes and ship movements.
  • AttributionWorking today, with PolarVectorWhich vessels could have been responsible, with PolarVector for ownership and sanctions research. Automated matching is planned.
  • Evidence packagingIn pilotHashed, timestamped files in the form an authority can use.
  • Institutional follow-upIn pilotThe file goes to the national authority, which is asked to cross-check it against its own alerts. We keep asking what happened, and publish the answer.

Roadmap and the ask

Three phases. Each one earns the next.

Each phase ends with a public report of what worked and what did not. All budget figures are planning assumptions, not quotes.

  1. Phase 0Under way

    Pilot. Six months, one area, one finished evidence package.

    From October 2026, six months. Funded in tranches as money arrives; the first €60,000 is the minimum for the full scope.

    • Sentinel-1 screening of the shipping lanes south of Cyprus.
    • A false-alarm rate, measured against analyst review.
    • Ten analyst-reviewed detections, published with methods.
    • One evidence package submitted to a competent authority.
    • Transparency pages live: treasury statements, donor policy, methods note.

    Planning assumption

    €119,000

    for six months. Minimum viable pilot: €60,000.

    Released in three milestone tranches

    1. Screening of the study area is running.
    2. The first ten analyst-reviewed detections are published, with methods.
    3. The first evidence package is submitted to an authority and acknowledged.
    Line-item budget
    Contract engineer, six months
    €33,000
    Analyst, half time, six months
    €15,000
    Operations and fundraising, 0.3 FTE
    €7,200
    Cloud and storage
    €9,000
    Commercial imagery, 20 scenes
    €11,000
    AIS access
    €4,000
    Legal and compliance set-up
    €12,000
    Audit-ready accounting
    €5,000
    Insurance
    €2,000
    Transparency pages, reporting, design
    €4,000
    Field verification and travel, two cases
    €6,000
    Contingency, 10%
    €10,800
    Total
    about €119,000

    The minimum viable version, about €60,000, uses a half-time engineer, a 0.3 FTE analyst and 11 scenes, €8,000 for legal set-up and €3,000 for accounting, and no paid operations. Planning assumptions; we will publish actual costs against them.

    The €18,000 radar-monitoring pilot on our Projects page is Module A of this phase: data, compute and imagery. See the Projects page

  2. Phase 1Planned

    Core platform. Near-continuous coverage of the Eastern Mediterranean.

    Twelve months, starting after the Phase 0 report. No date is set.

    • Near-continuous screening of the Eastern Mediterranean.
    • Dark-vessel candidate matching, with precision and recall published on a labelled test set.
    • An evidence-package builder with chain of custody, and a case-management tool.
    • Quarterly public reports, and at least ten submissions to authorities with a measured response rate.

    Planning assumption

    About€650,000

    for twelve months, or about €1.0M for eighteen.

  3. Phase 2Planned, depends on Phase 1

    Basin scale. The whole Mediterranean, in near real time.

    Two to three years. Credible only once Phase 1 shows a measured response rate.

    • Near-real-time screening across the Mediterranean.
    • A regional verification network.
    • Formal data-sharing agreements with authorities.
    • Institutional-grade security and audit.

    Planning assumption

    €1.7–2.1M

    a year, for two to three years.

What each amount unlocks

Not everything waits for the whole sum.

Smaller amounts pay for finished pieces of work. Bars are drawn to scale against the full pilot.

  1. €2,400

    The Limassol coastline clean-up

    Three Saturdays, every item logged and reported to the municipality.

  2. €5,000

    The credibility package

    Legal set-up basics, the donor policy and the transparency pages.

  3. €18,000

    Module AData, compute and imagery

    Six months of Sentinel-1 data, compute and 20 commercial scenes, with volunteer analyst time. This is the radar-monitoring pilot on the Projects page.

  4. €60,000

    Minimum viable pilotThe pilot can start

    A half-time engineer, a part-time analyst and 11 commercial scenes. No paid operations.

  5. €119,000

    Full Phase 0The pilot as planned

    A paid engineer, legal set-up, audit-ready accounting and field verification, with a ten percent contingency.

Beyond the pilot, about €350,000 covers the first six months of Phase 1 and about €650,000 a full year. Fund a named objective

Governance

Who controls the money.

Funders ask who we are, what exactly the money is for, and who controls it. This is what we can say today.

The organisation

Type
Independent, non-governmental organisation. Not a public authority.
Legal entity
Mediterranean Environmental Protection Agency, an incorporated association, Western Australia
Registration
Application for incorporation no. 1927039, Associations and Charities (Consumer Protection Division), Department of Local Government, Industry Regulation and Safety, Western Australia
Office
Trilogy Limassol Seafront, 28 October Avenue, Limassol, Cyprus

Registration and board details are published here as soon as they are final.

What we commit to publishing

  • A monthly treasury statement.
  • A quarterly report, including what failed.
  • Our donor-acceptance policy and refusal list.
  • A conflicts register, including related parties.

These are commitments for the pilot. None is published yet, because no funds have been received.

Independence

  • No funder chooses our cases.

    We are not accepting money that comes with control over which cases we open or who we name. No funder sees our findings before the authorities do.

  • We never fund outputs.

    No one pays per detection, per referral or per named vessel. Funders pay for coverage, analyst time and tooling, never for a result.

  • Some money is refused.

    Nothing from ship owners, managers, charterers, flag registries, P&I clubs or offshore oil and gas licensees.

Investigations partner PolarVector Vessel, ownership and sanctions research, and lawful verification on the ground. The commercial and financial relationship between PolarVector and MEPA, including any payments between them and any shared directors, is to be published here. Part of the field-verification budget may be spent with PolarVector; any such payment will appear in the monthly treasury statement. polarvector.uk

Giving

Two ways to give.

Small gifts can stay private. The books are public. Both routes pay into the same named budget lines.

In euros

Receipts, grants and monthly giving.

For foundations, companies and anyone who needs a receipt or a grant agreement. The euro channel is being set up, so there is no payment link yet. Write to us and we will tell you where it stands.

Write to us

In Monero (XMR)

Private by design.

Under our proposed policy, gifts under €1,000 can be anonymous. For larger gifts the law can require us to know who is giving; we keep that information confidential and never publish it.

How to give in Monero

Once funds arrive, we publish a treasury statement every month, within 15 days of month end: what came in, what we spent, and the proof. We return any gift that comes with control over our cases.

Donor-acceptance policy

Proposed, to be adopted by the board
Under €1,000
Accepted anonymously.
€1,000 to €4,999
We ask for a private compliance contact, and accept a refusal.
€5,000 to €9,999
A private compliance contact is required.
€10,000 and above
Identity and source-of-funds check, board approval, and any legal reporting.
Any single source
Above 15% of annual income needs board review.

Refused: sanctioned persons and jurisdictions; ship owners, managers, charterers, flag registries and P&I clubs; offshore oil and gas licensees in Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone; anyone who asks for influence over which cases we open. Thresholds are proposals, to be confirmed with counsel.

Check our work

Nine measures we will report.

Definitions are fixed now. Targets for the pilot are proposals, to be set after the first eight weeks of baseline data.

MeasureDefinitionPhase 0 target
CoverageShare of Sentinel-1 acquisitions over the study area screened within 24 hours.95% or more
ReviewShare of candidates above the confidence threshold reviewed by an analyst within 72 hours.90% or more
False-alarm rateShare of machine-flagged candidates rejected on analyst review.Reported; a baseline
Confirmed detectionsAnalyst-confirmed and published, with methods and uncertainty.10 by month six
Evidence packagesHashed, logged and sent to a competent authority.1, stretch 3
Authority responseAcknowledgements and actions, with response time.At least 1 acknowledgement; the rest reported
Cost per reviewed detectionAll Phase 0 costs divided by reviewed detections.Reported
TransparencyMonthly treasury statements published within 15 days of month end.6 of 6
Open outputsMethods note, evidence-package specification, one dataset release.All three

What will be published

  • Methods notePlanned

    How candidates are screened and reviewed, how false alarms are counted, and the “indicative, not conclusive” standard for vessel matches.

  • Quarterly reportPlanned

    Within 15 days of quarter end: what we planned, did and measured, what failed, money in and out.

  • Evidence-package specificationPlanned

    Open, so anyone can see how a file is hashed, timestamped and logged.

  • Monthly treasury statementPlanned

    Opening balance, receipts by project, conversions with proofs, spend by category, closing balance.

Evidence and naming standard (proposed). Every file is hashed and timestamped, and the original is always kept. No vessel is named in public until the competent authority has acknowledged the referral and the owner has had seven days to reply.

Contact

Tell us what you need to see.

A person reads every funding enquiry. Ask for the budget, the method or the documents behind any claim on this page.

admin@mepa.ngo

Contact page

Projects How to donate

Trilogy Limassol Seafront, 28 October Avenue, Limassol, Cyprus