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Anatomy of a Nature Conservancy Conservation Project
Introduction to The Nature Conservancy's Conservation Project Process
The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization with the mission of preserving the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.
To achieve its mission, the Conservancy has developed a strategic, science-based approach to its conservation work, called Conservation by Design, which helps it identify and work to protect the highest-priority places – landscapes and seascapes that, if conserved, ensure the diversity of life on Earth over the long term.
Conservation by Design entails a four-step, disciplined process that enables the Conservancy to develop the appropriate mix of actions to abate threats in a given place and to secure tangible, lasting conservation results. Because different places require different strategies, the Conservancy tailors its tools and strategies to local circumstances. Given the wide variety of threats, the organization must be innovative in developing flexible, uniquely tailored conservation action plans.
Using Conservation by Design to Develop a Nature Conservancy Conservation Project
Step 1 in our Conservation Process: Setting Priorities
As the first step in the development of a project, the Conservancy must set its conservation priorities for a specific, scientifically-selected geographic location – called an ecoregion – that often encompasses millions of acres. It does this after careful review of the ecoregion’s ecological significance, its concentration of different species of plants and animals, the overall quality of the natural communities and the threats to the health of the area. This collected data allows the Conservancy to prioritize which sites in the area are most in need of protection.
Example of Setting Priorities
The arid region of the southwest U.S. and northwest Mexico supports a number of rare and native species, but is under intense pressures that threaten the region’s health. If the Conservancy were to develop a new project in this ecoregion, “Desert X,” its experts would identify the types and approximate numbers of birds, snakes, cacti and other species, and assess the state of the area’s threats and how they have affected the quality of the environment. Using this information, the Conservancy may decide to focus on a 10,000-acre area in southern Arizona with a healthy part of a complex river system and a high concentration of species found nowhere else on Earth.
Step 2 in our Conservation Process: Developing Strategies
Once the Conservancy decides where to develop projects in a specific ecoregion, the organization must outline strategies to protect the targeted areas. In order to develop and execute its strategies, the Conservancy identifies which natural systems are most critical to health of the broader ecoregion and what the direct threats are to the conservation area. It then crafts strategies that will protect the conservation site while abating the threats.
Example of Developing Strategies
Now that the Conservancy has settled on a conservation project site, its experts determine that the river running through the region is critical to the health of the habitat because it provides much-needed water to the terrestrial plant and animal species, contains a number of rare aquatic species and is a key waterway for migratory fish moving upstream to spawn. The highest-ranked threat to the river is an infestation of invasive plants that are consuming vast quantities of precious water and choking out the native plants. To abate this threat, the Conservancy develops a strategy to manually remove the invasive species and restore the native plants to the system.
Step 3 in our Conservation Process: Taking Action
In keeping with The Nature Conservancy’s commitment to results, the bulk of its resources — both human and financial — are focused on implementing its conservation strategies. Program staff located in state and country offices organize budgets and work schedules and develop partnerships to proactively accomplish the goals set out in the conservation area plan. More often than not, Conservancy staff seek out landowners who own ecologically important land rather than react to offers from landowners.
Example of Taking Action
Nearly two-thirds of the Conservancy’s project site falls on private land while the remaining one-third is located on public lands. The Conservancy’s land protection staff meets with the private landowner and working together, the landowner and Conservancy staff work out a mutually beneficial conservation transaction using a range of real estate techniques, such as cash payments and available tax benefits. The Conservancy then sets up several meetings with the government agency responsible for managing the land and establishes a partnership that brings both groups working together to remove the invasive species and restore the health of the system.
Step 4 in our Conservation Process: Measuring Success
The Nature Conservancy evaluates on a regular basis the conservation activity for a project to determine if both program and biological conservation goals are being met for the conservation area. By quantifying its conservation impact and its direct contribution to conserving the diversity of life on Earth, the Conservancy holds itself accountable to its members, the public and the plants and animals that have a stake in the preservation of the world’s natural resources.
Example of Measuring Success
Three years after the implementation of the Conservancy’s project in “Desert X,” staff members survey the condition of the river and the level of threats. They compare this data to the information gathered at the start of the project and find that the number of invasive species has declined significantly while native species have rebounded at rates better than expected. The populations of migratory fish have also increased and are slowly returning to their historic numbers.
Project Review and Approval Process
To ensure that all of The Nature Conservancy’s conservation projects are in keeping with its mission and values, a formal review and approval process is in place at many levels in the organization. Formal project review can involve the Board of Directors, the President and Chief Conservation Officer and regional and operating unit managers exercising delegated authority.
Board of Directors
All fiduciary and legal authority for The Nature Conservancy is vested in its Board of Directors. The Board is made up of members with diverse backgrounds in such areas as science, conservation, business and academia. It is responsible for creating all of the Conservancy’s policies and procedures and is the final step in the approval process for all major projects. It meets formally three times a year, but maintains contact throughout the year through the organization’s senior managers and through several less-formal conferences. Projects requiring significant financial investment or which pose unique risks and challenges must be reviewed and approved by the Board of Directors.
Approval by the President or Chief Conservation Officer
The Board of Directors has delegated certain levels of authority to The Nature Conservancy’s President to carry out the organization’s day to day conservation work and projects. Projects within those delegated financial limits are reviewed and approved by the President or the Chief Conservation Officer, to whom the President has delegated project approval authority. Project review and approval is based on criteria that include:
- the conservation worthiness of the project;
- the certainty of obtaining the financial resources need to complete the project;
- the staff capacity to undertake the project;
- the implications for long-term commitments by the Conservancy from involvement in the transaction, and other considerations.
Organizational Review
Certain projects that may have organization-wide impacts are brought to special committees for specific types of review and approval. The Conservancy has established a Risk Assessment Committee. Projects are referred to this committee through the eight regional managing directors before there is a substantial commitment of resources. After careful evaluation of all aspects of the project, the committee will decide if the project may proceed as originally designed or if it may only proceed with modifications and conditions. The Conservancy has also established a vigorous conflict of interest process and a Conflicts Committee comprised of senior staff who review transactions for compliance with conflict of interest standards and policies. All projects must have all appropriate facts disclosed as they move through a process that checks for and mitigates any existing or potential conflicts of interest before final approval.
Regional and Operating Unit Level of Review
Often times, large conservation projects that transcend state or country boundaries or that involve project of a certain dollar size will be sent to one of the Conservancy’s eight regional managing directors for review and approval, under authority that has been delegated to them by the President.
The Conservancy also has directors for each of its 50 programs in the United States and more than 30 countries around the world. State and country program directors work directly with field staff and are intimately involved in the entire process of developing a new conservation project. Before a new project is implemented, it is brought before a local board of trustees. The Nature Conservancy benefits enormously from the involvement of about 1,500 unpaid chapter trustees who serve in an advisory capacity on chapter boards across the United States and internationally.
Project Financing: How the Conservancy Pays for Conservation Projects
Since much of the conservation work of the Conservancy involves land or a land-related activity (such as land acquisition or habitat restoration,) accomplishing Conservancy conservation projects is a very capital- intensive effort. Each conservation project must stand on its own and the proponent of the project must be able to demonstrate a reasonable likelihood that permanent capital will be able to be obtained to pay for the project.
Typically, the funds needed to pay to acquire the land or easements or to pay for habitat management costs will come from one of three sources. In the first category of projects, the Conservancy will solicit tax-deductible charitable contributions from individuals, corporations and/or foundations which will be used to cover conservation project costs.
In a second category of projects, the Conservancy will find the funds needed by selling land subject to conservation restrictions to a private buyer. These transactions are called conservation buyer transactions and often, in order for the Conservancy to be made whole financially, the Conservancy will need to raise other charitable funds to cover its full costs in such transactions.
Finally, in the third category of cases, the Conservancy will find the needed project funds by working in cooperation with a government agency. Here, two approaches may be employed:
- first, the Conservancy may acquire land for later re-sale to the cooperating government agency at such time as agency funds become available; or
- second, the government agency may provide a grant for the cost of implementing a habitat restoration project or management plan on Conservancy lands or on the land of a cooperating private landowner.
In the case of re-sales of land to government agencies, it is the Conservancy’s policy to recover only its costs in the transaction and not to realize a profit on such sales.
Because the timing as to when permanent project funding may be available may not coincide with the timing of project deadlines when landowners need or want to be paid for the land or easements they have agreed to sell, the Chapter responsible for the project must borrow funds on an interim basis in order to meet project financing needs.
Fortunately, the Conservancy has created a Land Preservation Fund (the LPF), which is a revolving fund from which Chapter project proponents can borrow funds for immediate project needs. Loan approvals are made subject to a commitment to repay the LPF with interest and within a defined period of time. When the Board of Directors, the President or others with delegated authority to approve a project, they are actually approving not just the conservation-worthiness of a particular project but they are also approving the financial plan proposed to pay for the project and thereby authorizing the borrowing of LPF funds to undertake the project based on the evaluation of the project’s conservation and financial merits.
Closing the Deal: Legal Steps in a Conservation Real Estate Project
The Nature Conservancy has a detailed and extensive process to ensure that all conservation projects are done in an appropriate and legal manner. For projects involving land acquisition, conservation easements or any other type of land transaction, the Conservancy has a network of experienced real estate lawyers and other counsel based throughout the world. These individuals are responsible for obtaining and reviewing all legal documents related to the organization’s conservation projects including title insurance commitments, deeds, contracts and other legal documents. They also work with Conservancy staff to ensure that all land transactions are appraised and valued in accordance with accepted procedures and professional standards and that each project has a documented environmental hazards review.
Working in Partnerships
One of the reasons why The Nature Conservancy is so successful is because it works closely with local communities, businesses, governments, indigenous people and traditional communities all over the world. The scope and urgency of the Conservancy’s mission requires it to reach out to all sectors of society — public and private — to forge strong, productive partnerships based on mutual benefit and trust.
For example, as the urbanized world encroaches on wildlife habitat, it also threatens the natural places that provide important training and testing grounds for the military. In an expanded partnership, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Conservancy have joined forces to protect natural resources that matter deeply to both organizations. The Conservancy is purchasing land that borders military bases and establishing conservation easements to create buffer zones that conserve the ecological integrity of the habitat while also supporting the military’s mission.
Managing Conservation Lands and Interests over the Long Term
Once a project has been developed and implemented, there is a need for a management plan to care for the habitat for the long term. The Conservancy sets aside funds each year for the continual management of the project and employs land stewards to maintain the health of the habitat over time. If the Conservancy owns the land outright, it will sometimes turn the land over to another entity, such as the government or a local land trust. Before handing over the property, the Conservancy puts in place legally-binding restrictions that limit certain types of uses or prevent development from taking place now and in the future, while protecting the property’s ecological or open-space values.
Financial Support and Revenue
The Nature Conservancy's conservation work is made possible largely through the financial support of its membership with 64 percent of its revenue coming from individuals. An additional 22 percent comes from foundations while six percent comes from corporations and eight percent from other sources.
Eighty percent of all funds donated to the Conservancy go directly to conservation programs, meaning that eighty cents of every dollar goes to protecting the Earth's most important natural areas to enhance the quality of life now and for future generations.
