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The Nature Conservancy
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The Nature Conservancy is a US charitable environmental organization working to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.
Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy works in more than 30 countries, including all 50 United States, with an increasingly global reach. The Conservancy has over one million members, has protected more than 69,000 square kilometers (17 million acres) in the United States and more than 473,000 square kilometers (117 million acres) internationally.
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Encyclopedia
The Nature Conservancy is a US charitable environmental organization working to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.
Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy works in more than 30 countries, including all 50 United States, with an increasingly global reach. The Conservancy has over one million members, has protected more than 69,000 square kilometers (17 million acres) in the United States and more than 473,000 square kilometers (117 million acres) internationally. The organization's total support and revenue was $1.28 billion in fiscal year 2007 with assets totaling $5.42 billion.
The Nature Conservancy rated as one of the most trusted national organizations in Harris Interactive polls in 2007, 2006 , and 2005 poll. Forbes magazine rated The Nature Conservancy's fundraising efficiency at 88% in its 2005 survey of the largest U.S. charities. The Conservancy received a four-star rating from Charity Navigator in 2008 and was named by the organization in 2005 on their list of "10 of the Best Charities Everyone's Heard Of." The American Institute of Philanthropy gives the Conservancy an A- rating and includes it on its list of "Top-Rated Charities."
The Nature Conservancy is America's 3rd-largest nonprofit by assets, and America's largest environmental nonprofit by assets and by revenue.
The Nature Conservancy is led by President and CEO Mark Tercek, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, and an adjunct professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. The organization draws from all segments of the community. Retired General Norman Schwarzkopf, the Commander of coalition forces during the First Gulf War, was a member of the President's Conservation Counsel of the Conservancy.
Timeline
1915 : The Ecological Society of America is formed. From its beginning, there is some disagreement about its mission: Should it exist only to support ecologists and publish research or should it also pursue an agenda to preserve natural areas?
1917 : From the activist wing within the Ecological Society, the Committee for the Preservation of Natural Conditions, chaired by Victor Shelford, is created.
1926 : The Committee publishes The Naturalist's Guide to the Americas, an attempt to catalog all the known patches of relatively undisturbed nature left in North America and in parts of Latin America.
1946 : The Committee reforms itself as the Ecologists' Union, resolving to take “direct action” to save threatened natural areas.
1950 : The Ecologists' Union changes it's name to The Nature Conservancy.
1951 : The Nature Conservancy is incorporated as a nonprofit organization in the District of Columbia on October 22.
1954 : The Nature Conservancy grants its first official chapter charter in Eastern New York, thereby launching the first in a network of chapters and field offices that grows to cover the entire United States. Later that year, the Conservancy acquires its first piece a property - the Arthur W. Butler Memorial Sanctuary. This donation started a suite of land acquisition projects. The organization still uses donated land as an important land conservation and fundraising tool.
1955 : Land acquisition, a key protection tool for the Conservancy, continues with a purchase along the Mianus River Gorge on the New York/Connecticut border. The Conservancy provides $7,500 to finance the purchase, with the provision that the loan be repaid for use in other conservation efforts. The revolving loan fund that results — the Land Preservation Fund — is still the organization’s foremost conservation tool.
1961 : The Nature Conservancy embarks on its first partnership with a public agency, the Bureau of Land Management, to help co-manage an important old-growth forest in California.
- The Nature Conservancy receives its first donated conservation easement, on of Bantam River salt marsh in Connecticut. The easement allows the landowner to retain title to the ecologically valuable property while giving the Conservancy the right to enforce restrictions on certain types of harmful activities.
1965 : A gift from the Ford Foundation enables the Nature Conservancy to hire its first full-time, paid president, Tom Richards, a former IBM executive. Richards introduces management techniques from IBM.
1966 : The Nature Conservancy purchases Mason Neck, Virginia, as part of a plan to later sell it to the federal government. It is the first such deal of this magnitude with the government — an arrangement that comes to be known as a government co-op. Pat Noonan is president.
1970 : Robert E. Jenkins joins the Conservancy as Chief Scientist. He focuses TNC on the central mission of preserving biodiversity and leads the organization ultimately to create and foster, beginning in 1974, a 50-state biological inventory, introducing scientific rigor to land acquisition choices.
1972 : The Nature Conservancy helps create the Golden Gate National Recreation Area - one of the most visited national parks in the United States. Huey Johnson - Western Director of the Conservancy - convinces the Gulf Oil Corporation to cancel a housing development project called Marincello and sell the land to the Nature Conservancy for $6.5 million. This key part of the Marin Headlands was then transferred to the GGNRA to help make up the national park surrounding the Golden Gate.
1974 : The Natural Heritage Network is launched by the Science Division. The network ultimately comes to reside in and be supported by the governments of all 50 states, most of Canada, and a dozen other countries in the New World. The first state is South Carolina, the second Mississippi, the third, a few months later, Oregon. A core methodology is developed over the following decades based on strictly comparable "elements" of biodiversity, assessment of their status, and locating occurrences of those most imperiled. The methodology becomes the national standard and is adopted by numerous partner organizations, university researchers, and agencies of the federal government.
1980 : The Nature Conservancy expands and relaunches its International Conservation Program, focused on Latin America, to identify two things: areas in need of protection and conservation organizations in need of technical and financial assistance. William D. Blair is president.
1988 : With the purchase of $240,000 in Costa Rican debt, The Nature Conservancy completes its first “debt-for-nature” swap to support conservation in Braulio Carillo National Park. The Conservancy signs a landmark agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense to assist in managing 25 million acres (100,000 km²) of military land.
1989 : With funding from the U.S. Congress, The Nature Conservancy launches the Parks in Peril program, designed to protect 50 million acres (200,000 km²) in Latin America and the Caribbean by helping local nonprofit and governmental organizations provide effective park stewardship. Frank Boren is president.
- The Nature Conservancy purchases the 32,000 acre (130 km²) Barnard Ranch in Oklahoma’s Osage Hills and establishes the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. Here, the Conservancy has undertaken its largest restoration effort to date, re-creating a fully functioning tallgrass prairie by reintroducing bison and fire to the ecosystem.
1990 : A new office in Koror, Republic of Palau, represents The Nature Conservancy’s first expansion beyond the Western Hemisphere.
1991 : The Nature Conservancy launches its Last Great Places: An Alliance for People and the Environment initiative, a multinational, $300 million effort to protect large-scale ecosystems by making people part of the solution. The initiative emphasizes core reserve areas surrounded by buffer zones, where appropriate human uses are encouraged. John Sawhill is president.
1994 : The Nature Conservancy opens its first South American office, in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia.
1995 : The Nature Conservancy adopts Conservation by Design, a cutting-edge ecoregional approach for setting conservation priorities and taking action. Drawing on the lessons learned through the Last Great Places initiative and guided by scientific data from the Natural Heritage Network, the Conservancy begins to employ this framework for identifying the suite of sites that must be protected to conserve the biological diversity of the Western Hemisphere.
1999 : The Nature Conservancy's Membership surpasses 1 million.
2000 : The Conservancy announces The Campaign for Conservation, an effort to raise $1 billion to preserve 200 Last Great Places and complete a Conservation Blueprint identifying the places that must be conserved to ensure lasting protection of our natural heritage. The Campaign concluded at the end of 2003 after raising a total $1.4 billion.
- The Conservancy spins off its 85-center Natural Heritage Network into a new independent organization, the Association for Biodiversity Information (later named NatureServe).
- The Conservancy and the Association for Biodiversity Information publish Precious Heritage: The Status of Biodiversity in the United States, the most comprehensive analysis to date of biodiversity in the United States. Precious Heritage warns that 1/3 of the plant and animal species found in the United States are in peril.
2001 : Steve McCormick begins as President and Chief Executive Officer of The Nature Conservancy in February.
- The Nature Conservancy turns 50. In celebration, 12 renowned photographers, including Annie Leibovitz and William Wegman, capture the rich and complex splendor of some of the “Last Great Places” in the Conservancy’s In Response to Place photography exhibit.
- The Nature Conservancy acquires property for Oregon’s Zumwalt Prairie Preserve on the edge of Hells Canyon in Wallowa County. The Nature Conservancy's preserve includes extensive native bunchgrass prairie habitats and wooded canyons descending to the Imnaha River. Creeks on the preserve harbor spawning grounds for endangered Snake River steelhead and chinook salmon. Zumwalt Prairie is also renowned for its concentrations of breeding hawks and eagles and other wildlife.
2002 : The Nature Conservancy signs an agreement in January to purchase about 97,000 acres (390 km²) of one of Colorado's largest and most important natural areas – the Baca Ranch. The acquisition is the first of a complex series of transactions that by 2005 is expected to create the Great Sand Dunes National Park and a new Baca National Wildlife Refuge, as well as add land to the Rio Grande National Forest.
- With a commitment of $1.1 million from The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and the World Wildlife Fund, the U.S. and Peruvian governments sign a historic agreement in June to protect 10 tropical rainforest areas covering more than 27.5 million acres (111,000 km²) within the Peruvian Amazon.
2003 : Transforming a bankruptcy into a conservation opportunity, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and World Wildlife Fund, partnered with Chilean environmental organizations to protect the rare plants and wildlife on of biologically rich temperate rainforest in the Valdivian Coastal Range in southern Chile.
- The Nature Conservancy and The National Park Service jointly purchased the 116,000 acre (469 km²) Kahuku Ranch in Hawaii for addition to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The purchase increases the size of the 217,000 acre (878 km²) park by fifty percent, and is the largest land conservation transaction in Hawaii’s history.
2004 : After more than a decade of work to conserve the Baca Ranch in Colorado, The Nature Conservancy completes the last of a complex set of real estate transactions, clearing the way for the protection of the ranch and the designation of the nation’s newest national park, the Great Sand Dunes National Park.
- During a five-week expedition through Indonesia’s karst systems – limestone caves, cliffs and sinkholes – a team of international scientists led by The Nature Conservancy discover several new species, including a “monster” cockroach that is believed to be the largest known species of cockroach in the world.
2005 : The Nature Conservancy, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and other partners announce that the ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to have gone extinct in 1946, had been rediscovered in the Big Woods of Arkansas.
2006: Through the Micronesia Challenge, five Micronesian governments commit to conserve 30 percent of nearshore marine resources and 20 percent of forest resources by 2020.
- The Nature Conservancy launches its Africa program.
2007 : The Conservancy protects of forest in New York’s Adirondacks, the last big tract of privately owned timberland in the park. The transaction allows selective logging to continue for 20 years, helping to preserve 850 jobs at a local mill.
- The Conservancy and Conservation International broker the largest ever debt-for-nature swap under the Tropical Forest Conservation Act. The forgiven debt provides $26 million in conservation funding for Costa Rican tropical forests identified as conservation gaps by the Conservancy.
2008: Mark Tercek, former head of the Goldman Sachs Center for Environmental Markets, begins as President and Chief Executive Officer of The Nature Conservancy in July.
- The Nature Conservancy and The Trust for Public Land preserve the Crown of the Continent— of western Montana forestland. This region has sustained all of its species— including grizzlies, lynx, moose and bull trout—since Lewis & Clark.
2009: The Nature Conservancy announces a 10% reduction in staff due to the worsening economy, a drop in donations and other losses.
Approach
The Nature Conservancy takes a scientific approach to conservation, selecting the areas it seeks to preserve based on analysis of what is needed to ensure the preservation of the local plants, animals, and ecosystems. The Nature Conservancy is one of the world's largest environmental organizations as measured by number of members and area protected. It is a nonprofit organization supported primarily by private donations.
The Nature Conservancy works with all sectors of society including businesses, individuals, communities, partner organizations, and government agencies to achieve its goals. The Nature Conservancy is known for working effectively and collaboratively with traditional land owners such as farmers and ranchers, with whom it partners when such a partnership provides an opportunity to advance mutual goals. The Nature Conservancy is in the forefront of private conservation groups implementing prescribed fire to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems and working to address the threats to biodiversity posed by non-native and invasive plants and animals.
The Nature Conservancy has pioneered new land preservation techniques such as the conservation easement and debt for nature swaps. A conservation easement is a way for land owners to ensure that their land remains in its natural state while capitalizing on some of the land's potential development value. Debt for nature swaps are tools used to encourage natural area preservation in third world countries while assisting the country economically as well: in exchange for setting aside land, some of the country's foreign debt is forgiven.
Featured project sites
The Nature Conservancy's expanding international conservation efforts include work in North America, Central America, and South America, Africa, the Pacific Rim, the Caribbean, and Asia. Increasingly, the Conservancy focuses on projects at significant scale, recognizing the threat habitat fragmentation brings to plants and animals. Below are a few examples of such work:
The Nature Conservancy was instrumental in the creation in 2004 of the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. The Conservancy's efforts in China's Yunnan province, one of the most vital centers of plant diversity in the northern temperate hemisphere, serve as a model for locally-based ecotourism with a global impact. The Nature Conservancy and its conservation partner, Pronatura Peninsula Yucatán, are working to halt deforestation on private lands in and around the 1.8 million acre (7,300 km²) Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, along the Mexico-Guatemala border. In November 2004, 370,000 acres (1,500 km²) of threated tropical forest in Calakmul were permanently protected under a historic land deal between the Mexican federal and state government, Pronatura Peninsula Yucatán, four local communities and the Conservancy.
The Nature Conservancy's programs in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are working together to build partnerships and enhance the profile of the conservation needs in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem by supporting voluntary, private land conservation of important wildlife habitat. Conservation easements, land acquisition, stewardship agreements, grassbanks, prescribed fires and weed districts are a few of the tools the Conservancy and its partners use to protect this region's natural heritage. The Nature Conservancy's worldwide office is located in Arlington, Virginia.
The Conservancy was instrumental in the 2004 establishment of the Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota. Glacial Ridge is reputed to be the largest tallgrass prairie and wetlands restoration project ever.
In 2007 the Nature Conservancy made a purchase of New York forestland from Finch Paper Holdings LLC for $110 million, its largest purchase ever in that state.
Criticism
Over the years, The Nature Conservancy has faced a number of criticisms. They fall into the following main categories:
- Too close to business. Some environmentalists consider big business to be antagonistic to environmentalism, and disapprove of The Nature Conservancy's corporate collaborations. The Conservancy argues that since corporations have such a significant impact on the environment, they must be engaged in finding ways to do business that do not harm the environment. Moreover, they provide significant resources. In the most egregious incident, Nature Conservancy protected-land became the site of a severe oil spill caused by an on-site drilling company. The Conservancy, however, apologized for the incident and instituted a broad policy review in the wake of the incident
- Questionable resale. There have been allegations of The Nature Conservancy obtaining land and reselling it at a profit, sometimes to supporters, who have then made use of it in ways not perceived by all as being sufficiently environmentally friendly. The rationale for the resale has been that the profit allows The Nature Conservancy to increase its preservation of more important locations. However, the Conservancy does have a no-net-profit policy that has been in effect for years for all transactions of this type.
Response to Washington Post criticism
From nature.org:
The Nature Conservancy underwent investigation by the US Sentate Finance Committee and passed.
Other information
- The Nature Conservancy has a system for ranking the conservation status of species, and this system is one of two such systems that are in widespread use.
- Roberto Hernández Ramírez former CEO of Banamex is a member of the Board of Directors.
- Henry M. Paulson, Jr. former Board chair was United States Secretary of the Treasury from 2006 until 2009 under President George W. Bush.
- In 2008 The Nature Conservancy launched its Plant a Billion Trees Campaign http://www.plantabillion.org/ . The Conservancy is working in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil to restore of land and plant 1 billion trees by 2015. The campaign advertises that donating $1 plants 1 tree.
- In 2008 June The Nature Conservancy and The Trust for Public Land announced they reached an agreement to purchase approximately of western Montana forestland from Plum Creek Timber Company (NYSE:PCL) for $510 million. The purchase is part of an effort to keep these forests in productive timber management and protect the area’s clean water and abundant fish and wildlife habitat, while promoting continued public access to these lands for fishing, hiking, hunting and other recreational pursuits.
Bibliography
- Noel Grove, with photographs by Stephen J. Krasemann, Preserving Eden: The Nature Conservancy (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992) ISBN 0-8109-3663-1
- David E. Morine, Good Dirt: Confessions of a Conservationist (Chester, CT: The Globe Pequot Press, 1990) ISBN 0-87106-444-8
See also
External links
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