The Nature Conservancy

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Incorporated in 1951 for scientific and educational purposes, The Nature Conservancy is a nonprofit organisation supported by individual and corporate contributions, foundation grants, and membership dues. The Conservancy is a steadfastly single-purpose organisation. The Conservancy:

  1. Endeavours to resist temptations to stray from its mission of biodiversity preservation through habitat protection and management.
  2. Endeavours to be collaborative, non-adversarial, and solution-oriented and to use direct action.
  3. Searches for multiplying factors, such as partnerships, to advance its mission.
  4. Strives to balance conservation and economic development.
  5. Is not a radical, litigious organisation.


The Conservancy has 50 US state offices and operates in 14 Latin American countries, the Caribbean, Canada, and the Pacific Region. Outside of the USA, the organisation develops partnerships with like-minded, non-governmental organisations to protect threatened habitats. As of the year 2000, The Nature Conservancy owned or managed 1,397 preserves.


The Conservancy's headquarters is located in Arlington, Virginia. Nationwide in the USA, the Conservancy employs more than 2,800 professional staff and has a volunteer force of more than 13,000. Staff and volunteers have backgrounds as diverse as the ecosystems they protect.

Mission

Mission of The Nature Conservancy is to preserve plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.


Accomplishing the mission means:

  • Identifying lands with the best examples of natural communities and species.
  • Protecting species and natural communities through acquisition by gift or purchase; assisting other conservation organisations in their preservation efforts.
  • Managing preserves using staff and volunteers; encouraging compatible use of the preserves by researchers, students, and the public.

Identifying Land for Protection


Identifying rare elements — such as plants, animals, and natural communities — and mapping their locations is conducted by state Natural Heritage Inventory Programs. These programmes are a network of data centres developed by The Nature Conservancy and are, usually, administered by a state agency or university. The programmes use a standardised methodology to enable data sharing and analysis. Scientific information gathered by the Inventory indicates the relative rarity of each element statewide and globally, and whether elements are protected. Once species are identified and given a priority by rarity, the Conservancy uses the data to identify areas harbouring high-quality examples of critically threatened species for conservation action.

Protecting Habitats


The Conservancy uses non-confrontational, proven business techniques to protect habitats. Working only with willing sellers and donors, the Conservancy protects land through gifts, exchanges, conservation easements, management agreements, purchase, debt-for-nature-swaps (outside the USA), and management partnerships. Some acquisitions are transferred to state or federal agencies for management.


Specific criteria must be met before land may be purchased or accepted for protection by the Conservancy. If the criteria are met, the project is reviewed by the state chapter or national senior management, depending on the cost of the project. Money for the purchase is made available to state chapters from the Conservancy's revolving Land Preservation Fund. The chapter borrowing funds then repays the Land Preservation Fund so the money can be reinvested in other protection projects.

Managing Land


The Conservancy refers to land management as stewardship to reflect the ultimate goal of the organisation and its management philosophy. A steward is defined as someone who manages land for someone else. The someone else for whom the Conservancy manages the preserve consists of the rare species and natural communities. Secondary are researchers, visitors, and school groups — the present and future generations. The Conservancy manages for the secondary audiences only in ways that are compatible with its primary goal: to preserve the native biota (plants and animals), the ecological processes under which it evolved and adapted, and, where possible, the potential for its evolution.


Stewardship includes property management and ecological management of native species, natural communities, and ecosystems. Custodial management, including boundary posting and patrolling, fencing, trail construction and maintenance, trash removal, and visitor management, is conducted by dedicated Conservancy volunteers and staff. Ecological management, including prescribed fire, alien-species control, and ecological and hydrological restoration, is conducted by staff and volunteers with special training.

Membership


As of July 2000, The Nature Conservancy had 1,029,000 members nationwide in the USA. Through the financial generosity of these members the Conservancy is able to protect ecologically significant lands.


For more information about becoming a member of The Nature Conservancy and volunteering your time and services, visit the Conservancy home page by following the hypertext link in the referenced sites frame of this page.

Future


At present, 2002, The Nature Conservancy is realigning itself to meet the challenges of the future. With the accelerating loss of the Earth's biological heritage and the impairment of critical ecological processes that support life on the planet, the mission and work of The Nature Conservancy could not be more important or compelling.


This framework translates the Conservancy's broadly stated mission into a unifying articulation of common purpose and direction — a compass bearing to align the organisation in taking the most effective conservation action to achieve tangible, lasting results. It sets forth:

  • A clear, concise vision for accomplishing mission success;
  • An ambitious goal for the year 2010 to make the necessary progress towards fulfilling this vision;
  • An overview of the Conservancy's integrated approach for achieving this goal;
  • An outline of the measures the Conservancy uses to monitor its organisational progress;
  • A description of the unique values that characterise The Nature Conservancy's conservation work.


The Nature Conservancy calls this framework for mission success Conservation by Design. Through this approach, the Conservancy will harness the innovative and enterprising spirit that is its hallmark. With each local, state and country programs acting on a shared understanding of what constitutes success, The Nature Conservancy will work as One Conservancy while still taking full advantage of its decentralised organisational structure. To this framework the Conservancy will hold itself individually and collectively accountable

Conservation Vision


The Nature Conservancy's vision is to conserve portfolios of functional conservation areas within and across ecoregions. Through this portfolio approach, the Conservancy will work with partners to conserve a full array of ecological systems and viable native species.

Conservation Goal for 2010


By 2010, The Nature Conservancy and its partners will take direct action to conserve 600 functional landscapes — 500 in the USA and 100 in 35 countries abroad. The Conservancy will also deploy high-leverage strategies to ensure the conservation of at least 2,500 other functional conservation areas — 2,000 in the USA and 500 in other countries.

Core Concepts


Core concepts of Conservation by Design are defined by Ecoregions, Ecological Systems, Functional Conservation Areas, and Functional Landscapes.

  • Ecoregions, not political boundaries, provide a framework for capturing ecological and genetic variation in biodiversity across a full range of environmental gradients.
  • An Ecological System is a group of interconnected natural communities on land or in water that are linked together by ecological processes. Primary emphasis in portfolio design will be placed on conserving the highest quality examples of ecological systems and second, on viable populations of native species not captured within these ecological systems. Portfolio design and implementation is a dynamic and iterative process that will be periodically updated and refined.
  • Functional Conservation Areas conserve the focal species, natural communities, and ecological systems and the ecological processes necessary to sustain them over the long term. Conservation areas range along a continuum of complexity and scale from landscapes that seek to conserve a large number of conservation targets, to sites that seek to conserve a small number of conservation targets. To conserve wide ranging and migratory species, conservation areas within and across portfolios should be designed as integrated networks.
  • Functional Landscapes represent particularly effective and efficient geographical units for conserving biodiversity. Large, complex, multi-scale, and relatively intact functional landscapes provide an ecological stage on which biodiversity can respond to human or natural disturbances.

Conservation Approach

To fulfill its long-term vision and achieve its goals, The Nature Conservancy employs an iterative, integrated conservation process comprised of four fundamental components:

  1. Setting priorities through ecoregional planning;
  2. Developing strategies to conserve both single and multiple conservation areas;
  3. Taking direct conservation action; and
  4. Measuring conservation success.

Acknowledgements


This article is a lightly edited reproduction of source material provided to docents of the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve by The Nature Conservancy for dissemination to the public.


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