The Nature Conservancy History

In 1915, the Ecological Society of America was formed and since its inception there were disagreements with its mission. The consensus was that it should just be supportive to ecologists and publish their research, while another section believed that it should pursue an agenda and try to preserve natural areas. Two years later the Committee for the Preservation of Natural Conditions was formed by the activists of the Ecological Society.

In 1926 a guide was published to list all know areas of wilderness still left in North and Central America titled "The Naturalist's Guide to the Americas". Activists started to take a more active role after the scientists announced the formation of the Ecologists Union and they announced that they would take direct action in order to save the threatened natural areas of the world.

In 1950 the Nature Conservancy become the new name of the Ecologists Union and was incorporated a year later in Washington D.C. as a non-profit organization. In 1955 land acquisition by the Conservancy started, and became a key tool for the organization. The first was a 60 acre piece of land in New York that was part of the Mianus River Gorge.

The first loan was funded by Conservancy and became the basis for the Land Preservation Fund which today is one of the foremost tools for conservation that the organization still uses. In 1961 the first partnership between the Conservancy and a public agency, the Bureau of Land Management, was formed. The Ford Foundation donated the monetary gift to fund the hiring of the Nature Conservancy's first time president.

In 1970 the Natural Heritage Network was started a biological inventory of the entire United States, which was completed in 1974. The International Conservation Program was established in 1980 for conservation of natural areas in Latin America.

In 1988 the Conservancy entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense to manage 25 million acres of land owned by the military. Today the Conservancy continues their efforts to save the world's natural areas from being lost to exploitation.

NOTE: Information on this site is not guaranteed to be accurate. Some content is compiled from 3rd party sources. If you are aware of incorrect or outdated information, feel free to contact us.