The Nature Conservancy: A Guardian of Biodiversity and Natural Habitats

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization that works to protect the lands and waters on which all life depends. TNC was founded on March 27, 1951, by a small group of socially prominent environmentally sensitive people who launched it in New York City, and since then it has become one of the most influential conservation organisations in the world. Its scientific approach to conservation and its partnerships with stakeholders, industries, governments, and communities make it the largest conservation organisation in the world.

TNC currently works in more than 70 countries worldwide, saves biodiversity-rich lands from destruction, and mobilises people and resources to protect waters, oceans, and other valuable areas. This paper focuses on what TNC is, how it is organised, and what it does in the world, inviting readers to get involved in the conservation movement.

The Mission and Vision of The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy (‘TNC’, as it is widely known) strives to conserve the diversity of nature plants, animals and the ecosystems that sustain them. For us, this mission is clear. It is rooted in a vision of a world ‘where people and nature thrive’. With a philosophy embedded in the dynamic balance between society and nature, TNC pursues its mission through five fundamental beliefs: 1. Humankind and healthy ecosystems are inseparable; human welfare globally is entirely dependent on the health of our planet. 2. Science should be the basis for any actions taken. 3. Cutting-edge research, technologies and innovations must be centre-stage in conservation efforts. 4. Rational, measurable and manageable results, but focused on the long-term, must be achieved at every step to ensure healthy ecosystems. 5. Land and water – where biological diversity exists the most – must be safeguarded for future generations; our aim is a sustainable future that balances the needs of human society and the responsible use of natural resources.

Finally, TNC’s vision centres on partnering and networks. Both TNC’s 125th anniversary report and its current strategic plan emphasise that TNC believes tackling environmental challenges depends on ‘collaboration among governments, businesses, local communities and other stakeholders’. Partnering and networks help TNC expand its capacity to undertake large-scale projects. At the same time, this expansive strategy also helps TNC assure that it is listening and working with a wider range of stakeholders than it would be able to as an individual organisation. As a result, these partnerships potentially help with the development of more politically sustainable programs and practices, including those that balance promoting economic development and environmental conservation.

Education and outreach are a central part of its mission. TNC tries to inform people about conservation — what it is, why it matters and how people can help. TNC communicates its message through what it calls outreach, and it uses billboards, documentaries, print advertising and social media to attract attention and tell audiences about the world’s pressing environmental challenges. TNC also uses these campaigns to encourage people to think and do things differently, affecting their behaviour in ways that help the environment, whether by reducing their carbon footprint, supporting conservation policies, or leading local environmental projects. In this way, TNC can foster a culture of conservation, building on what one TNC employee called a ‘diaspora of caring’ that’s growing around the world. Education is motivating the next generation of conservation leaders. TNC runs programmes that teach K through 12 schoolchildren about conservation, Trek programs that expose university students to how TNC works in the field, scholarships that fund young people’s studies based on their interest and knowledge of conservation, and a summer leadership programme that prepares promising college graduates to be environmental champions.

Key Conservation Strategies and Initiatives

TNC uses a number of strategies to further their conservation goals of saving nature, recording biodiversity and mitigating habitat loss throughout the world. Some of TNC’s most impactful strategies include establishing and safeguarding nature reserves and protected areas. Nature reserves and protected lands are hotspots of biodiversity as they help support diverse species and biotic (systems) communities. Areas that are currently protected by the conservation organisation not only help safeguard many of Earth’s most vulnerable plant and animal species, including endangered species, but also provide a safe place where many species can thrive and flourish. These protected areas are valuable areas for scientific study and exploration and can help to reveal the complicated dynamics of ecosystems and conservation practices.

Another important strategy is restoration of damaged landscapes. Habitat restoration falls into the scientific and technological expertise of TNC. It involves rehabilitation of ecosystems degraded by human activities, such as logging, pollution or management practices, such as overgrazing or overfishing. TNC restores these areas by planting native species, removing alien species and by implementing resilient land use practices. Since there are elements of restoring what was there before, this has a similar mission to invironmentality and is fundamentally ‘technofixing’ areas of damage in the landscape. To the extent that TNC incorporates these practices, they’re restoring lost biodiversity and making ecosystems more resilient to climate change and other environmental stresses. The idea is that restoration helps to retrieve functioning ecosystems and, with them, the ecosystem services that we rely upon, whether that’s clean water, clean air or the fertility of our soils.

TNC also supports sustainable agriculture, forestry and fisheries. These topics might better describe what TNC does in relation to sustainable development. Sustainable agriculture is the practice of growing plants and rearing animals in a way that minimises the impact on the environment while also benefiting the farmers and their communities. This is especially important because farmers and their communities need continuous supply of food to survive. TNC provides farmers with valuable information about agricultural practices that will allow them to grow plants and raise animals efficiently without using excessive amounts of pesticides and fertilisers that harm the environment. TNC also supports sustainable forestry and fisheries. These topics relate to the issue of food availability since forests provide us with various products such as tables and chairs. Fishing comes into this discussion because humans have been enjoying seafood since ancient times. Sustainable forestry focuses on harvesting wood without causing too much damage to the forest system and its various biological components. TNC has been advocating for the implementation of sustainable companies that cut down forests in a way that will not cause complete extinction of the forest system and its living organisms. On the other hand, sustainable fisheries means it will not lead to overfishing or lack of marine diversity in the oceans.

Protecting Biodiversity Hotspots and Endangered Species

Biodiversity hotspots are areas with exceptionally high species diversity as well as high human stress and impact. They are considered a priority for The Nature Conservancy, due to having high rates of endemism, which are species found nowhere else in the world. TNC strives to provide protection for these areas, inhibiting the loss of unique and irreplaceable biodiversity. By providing protected areas to conserve biodiversity hotspots, TNC helps keep the Earth system in balance with limited negative impact to the environment.

Beyond seeking to safeguard within its reserves the rich biodiversity of much of Earth’s landmass and ocean, TNC pursues the ‘preservation of plant and animal species vulnerable to extinction’. With a global list of endangered species, TNC utilises focused conservation measures to ensure their survival. This means habitat protection, captive breeding and specimen re-introduction programmes to safeguard species from extinction and poaching, and combatting the general threats that serve to undermine the survival of plant and animal life. To achieve these ends, TNC works closely with government agencies, non-governmental organisations and local communities to carry out its agenda. By focusing attention on endangered species in need of protection, TNC aspires to prevent species’ extinction: the winnowing out of the so-called ‘endangered’ that make up a sizable part of Earth’s living heritage.

Public participation and education is a central component of TNC’s approach to conservation. The organisation works with local communities and NGOs to engage them in the protection of biodiversity hotspots and endangered species. They provide communities with education and training on conservation practices and the value and significance of biodiversity. Community-based conservation programmes create an exclusionary mentality towards outsiders TNC partner with local communities and NGOs to develop conservation plans and help them by providing seed money for restoration projects, as well as training for local workers. On top of this, TNC and its partners carry out outreach programmes to raise awareness about the conditions facing our natural world – such as the dire plight of species like the Sumatran tiger or the South Ronaldsay vole – and advocate for stronger conservation action. For example, a TNC campaign in the 1960s educated Americans about the value of coral reefs and triggered several bipartisan conservation measures. By educating communities and enabling them to appreciate and value what they have, TNC aims to create a sense of stewardship and responsibility toward biodiversity and the world at large. Without this kind of public awareness and participation, any conservation (and environmental) movement will be unsteady at best.

The Role of Science and Innovation in Conservation

With science and innovation in conservation as its compass, TNC works to find innovative solutions to preserve nature for us and future generations. TNC uses research to guide its strategy and actions to conserve nature. The organisation engages in scientific study to understand the mechanisms of ecosystems, species and environmental issues, learn how to use and modify conservation techniques, analyse conservation outcomes, and adapt strategies to meet changing circumstances and recognise new challenges. With research as its foundation, the organisation continuously improves the effectiveness of its conservation work.

Strategic innovation in conservation is also fuelled by technological innovation. Among the technologies TNC employs to monitor and manage natural areas are remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and drone surveillance. These technologies provide TNC with more and better data than ever before about land uses, existing and degraded habitats, and species distributions. These data have proven to be valuable tools for conservation planning in the global campaign to safeguard species and their habitats. Remote sensing technologies, for example, enable TNC to closely monitor deforestation and habitat loss in real time and spur timely response to flare-ups of environmental threats. In this way, technological innovation enhance TNC’s capacity to conserve and restore ecosystems, making conservation more targeted and efficient.

Another important aspect of their approach is closer collaboration with scientific institutions and researchers. TNC works with universities, research centres and other scientific organisations to promote conservation science and develop cutting-edge solutions to environmental problems, enabling an open exchange of ideas and knowledge, thereby stimulating the development of novel conservation approaches and technologies. TNC also finances and facilitates scientific research by providing money and equipment, as well as offering access to its natural reserves and staff expertise for field studies. This close collaboration with the scientific community not only helps the organisation foster and implement innovative conservation approaches and technologies, but also ensures that the plans and activities of TNC reflect the most up-to-date research and knowledge produced by the scientific community.

Community Engagement and Sustainable Development

Community. Photo by Mike SchneiderEverything TNC does is centred on this concept: ‘Community engagement is at the heart of [our] conservation efforts.’ This idea is a critical part of our conservation philosophy. Local communities live on the land and rely on their natural assets for food, fuel, water and shelter. When TNC works in a new area – often a city, county or country that we haven’t worked in before – we work to integrate the local community into the conservation effort. Their voice guides our work. They decide how to move forward, what actions should be taken, and why. This builds trust among communities, increasing motivation, buy-in and commitment to a collective goal. Conservation efforts are more effective if the people they are meant to help or affect know why they are necessary and how they could benefit from them. Before arriving in Harare, my TNC supervisor, Alletta, organised camps for local schools. During these week-long events, police officers taught local kids how to use their phones to report illegal activities such as timber or animal poaching. We even spent time to correct the kids’ spellings in their essays because their punctuation was typically poor. Then, we taught them how to use World Wildlife Fund Vision for Change – a participatory mapping and decision-making tool – to transform biophysical information about their local environment into maps to help them envision what a better future for their communities could look like.

One aspect of this is a deliberate focus on sustainable development, in which TNC promotes a distinctive approach to development that bolsters the environmental, economic and social pillars of sustainability. The goal is to ensure that conservation activities and the resulting conservation areas contribute to the improvement of people’s livelihoods, while at the same time conserving natural areas. Conservation initiatives can generate revenues from sales of products derived from land or sea, and are proving to be better at increasing living standards that conventional development. TNC is funding fishery improvements in Palawan that will improve the income of small-scale fishers and ensure a better supply of fish With our income-generating conservation model, TNC not only benefits fisheries, but also helps people improve their households, farms, markets and businesses. When communities devote surplus time and money to conservation, the conservation area benefits from greater staff and management resources, elevating conservation standards and outcomes.

One aspires to build strong constituencies for conservation, both within the community and near its natural critical zones. As part of its community engagement strategy, TNC runs awareness-raising and educational campaigns to engage communities in its conservation programme and the tangible benefits sustainable development entails. The organisation might also conduct campaigns to reduce waste or conserve water with a focus on generating both individual and collective actions, through a see-it-in-action approach. Furthermore, by introducing conservation education – including mentoring schemes for young people – TNC can build a culture of conservation, not least the emerging generation of professional environmental leaders and local conservation champions.

The Global Impact of The Nature Conservancy

TNC’s impact is also international, of course. The organisation operates in more than 70 countries around the world. Through the 396 chapters TNC has in nations strewn across the globe, its reach is truly international. The organisation operates at the international scale to tackle international problems. TNC’s international projects take on international crises such as climate change, deforestation and biodiversity loss, addressing these issues in ways that require coordinated efforts across several regions. Its international projects often focus on protecting globally important habitats, restoring severely degraded ecosystems or promoting practices that can make human development sustainable over the long haul in a wide variety of cultural and ecological contexts. TNC can reach further to make a global difference if it operates around the world.

Perhaps the most important contribution TNC has made to global conservation to date is on climate change – an issue TNC now views as ‘the greatest threat to biodiversity and the wellbeing of humanity’. TNC engages with mitigating the causes and adapting to the consequences of climate change with a variety of strategies, ranging from renewable energy promotion, to safeguarding carbon-rich ecosystems like forests and wetlands, to developing nature-based solutions to climate resilience, to creating awareness of the impact of climate change and pressuring for climatesmart policies. TNC, by managing its own ecosystems in ways that fight climate change, is making a global contribution to the fight against climate change.

Their global scope can be seen in their work to protect the world’s oceans. Marine ecosystems are crucial to biodiversity and the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, as well as many of the ecosystems services that underpin human health and wellbeing. But they have suffered extensive impacts from overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction. TNC works with local partners to restore, protect and manage marine habitats such as coral reefs, mangroves and seagrasses that are critical to marine biodiversity and ecosystem services. The organisation also promotes sustainable fisheries and marine protected areas to support healthy, productive ocean ecosystems. Addressing conservation on land and in the sea are both vital for the overall health and resilience of the planet’s ecosystems.

Conclusion

The Nature Conservancy’s commitment to conserving biodiversity and natural habitats is a testament to its vision of a sustainable future where nature and people thrive together. Through its science-based approach, innovative strategies, and collaborative efforts, TNC has made significant strides in protecting critical ecosystems and promoting sustainable development. By engaging communities, leveraging technology, and addressing global challenges, TNC continues to play a pivotal role in safeguarding the planet’s natural resources. As environmental challenges become increasingly complex and urgent, the work of organizations like The Nature Conservancy remains essential for ensuring a healthy, vibrant planet for future generations.