Book Reveals Nature Conservancy

Book Reveals Nature Conservancy

(Note: Here's the URL/website address for the below-mentioned Washington Post series: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/specials/natureconservancy/ See more below the article under Related, researched, recommended reading.)

June 20, 2006

By Tom Palmer, "The Nature of Things" columnist tom.palmer@theledger.com or 863-802-7535

P.O. Box 408

Lakeland, Florida 33802

888-431-7323 or 863-802-7587

http://www.theledger.com

To submit a Letter to the Editor: voice@theledger.com (300-word limit)

The Nature Conservancy is one of the most active conservation organizations in Polk County.

It owns and manages nature preserves, principally the 4,869-acre Tiger Creek Preserve, it brokers deals on behalf of state agencies to buy endangered land, it organizes prescribed burns and other management work and contracts with Polk County officials to do environmental management on the county's networks of environmental preserves.

For many residents, if they've heard of The Nature Conservancy at all, it's a name in a newspaper article or on a sign at the entrance to a preserve.

If you're interested in how The Nature Conservancy came to be and how it has progressed and changed over more than half a century, a recently published book might be a good place to start.

The book is "Nature's Keepers: The Remarkable Story of How The Nature Conservancy Became the Largest Environmental Organization in the World" by Bill Birchard (JosseyBass, San Francisco, 252 pages, $24.95).

TNC was founded in 1950, but didn't do much to attract notice in its early years.

The organization didn't have many members, much of a budget or a good idea of what its mission should be apart from some kind of land preservation.

In 1970 when then-President Robert E. Jenkins Jr. traveled to inspect the organization's properties in Virginia and Maryland, he had trouble finding some of them and even after he found them was left wondering why TNC had purchased them in the first place.

Twenty years later things had changed.

TNC had become a major player in brokering big land deals and in working with diverse conservation groups, corporations and government agencies to push land-buying programs that would protect more important natural habitat areas.

It was during this period that TNC was not only buying and managing preserves, but working as a middleman to aid government conservation purchases.

They have done that often in Florida, taking advantage of a non-governmental organization's ability to work more quickly and privately with landowners to broker deals.

Meanwhile, Birchard recounts how throughout the organization's history it went through periods of self-evaluation, continually trying to redefine its mission and to improve its fundraising so it could carry out that mission.

But perhaps TNC's most public re-evaluation came following a three-part [FOUR-part] series in The Washington Post in 2003 that uncovered some questionable financial dealings that led to a congressional investigation and an Internal Revenue Service audit.

After an initial defensive response to the series, TNC leaders eventually acknowledged that the Post's investigation actually did them a favor and they changed procedures to improve their accountability.

The expose also lead to TNC's board becoming more engaged in the oversight of the organization so, as one official put it, TNC's work is "righter than right."

Birchard's book provides a detailed look at TNC, though at times some of the accounts of inside dealings may be of less interest to some readers than the overall achievements.

Nevertheless, TNC is a major conservation organization and the book is probably overdue.

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060620/COLUMNISTS0503/606200346/1106/NEWS

Related, researched, recommended reading:

http://www.vtc.net/~tnccon/

http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org/tncframes.htm

The Washington Post Four-Part Series on The Nature Conservancy

This Washington Post series describes The Nature Conservancy's transformation from a grassroots group to a corporate juggernaut.

The Washington Post began reporting for this series of articles on the Nature Conservancy in 2001. This was interrupted by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and war in Afghanistan, and again by the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Staff writers David B. Ottaway and Joe Stephens visited Conservancy operations and sites in Maine, Virginia, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Texas. They interviewed Conservancy President Steven J. McCormick four times and spoke with scores of staff and senior officials at local, state and national levels.

The reporters also conducted hundreds of interviews with former Conservancy employees, representatives of other environmental groups, federal environmental officials, academic and legal nonprofit specialists and tax experts inside and outside government.

The Post obtained thousands of pages of internal documents and e-mail communications between Conservancy officials. A number of current employees, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing their jobs, were interviewed.

The reporters also reviewed thousands of pages of documents obtained elsewhere, including court and property records in Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Texas and Wyoming.

What do you think about the Nature Conservancy?
Do you have any comments or information on the organization? Do you have any responses to this investigative series? Send your thoughts to: TNC@washpost.com.

Part One : Inside the Nature Conservancy

Nonprofit Land Bank Amasses Billions

The Conservancy is the world's richest environmental group, amassing $3 billion in assets by pledging to save precious places. But recently it has aligned closely with corporations.

In addition to land conservation, it pursued drilling, logging and development. Its approach has led to strange bedfellows.

$420,000 a Year and No-Strings Fund

Officials at the Nature Conservancy say their finances are an open book, a stance charity experts describe as essential to promoting public trust. Still, simple answers can prove difficult to get.

Image Is a Sensitive Issue

A look inside the Nature Conservancy reveals a whirring marketing machine that has poured millions into building and protecting the organization's image, laboring to transform the charity into a household name.

Part Two: When Conservation and Business Fail to Mix

How a Bid to Save a Species Came to Grief

Mobil Oil gave the Conservancy a patch of prairie that encompassed the last native breeding ground of the most endangered bird in North America. The Conservancy wanted to turn the site into a national model of environmentally compatible drilling. But the results illustrate how the organization's philosophy and profit pursuits can put its core mission at risk.

For-Profit 'Flagship' Hits Shoals

Five years after the Nature Conservancy converted an abandoned U.S. Coast Guard station building into a rustic inn on Virginia's Eastern Shore as part of a $3-million for-profit venture, the group has declared the project a waste of money.

The Beef About the Brand

Of all the products that carry the Nature Conservancy imprimatur, perhaps the most unexpected is beef.

Part Three : A House in the Woods

Nonprofit Sells Land to Allies at a Loss

The Nature Conservancy has often resold raw land at a loss to supporters as part of a program to limit intrusive development, but the sales generally allow buyers to construct sprawling homes with swimming pools on the environmentally sensitive sites.

Landing a Big One: Preservation, Private Development

When the Conservancy acquired rare open sand plain on Martha's Vineyard it hailed it as "an important victory for conservation."

While the Conservancy placed restrictions limiting some development, it also resold half of it, paving the way for Gatsbyesque vacation homes.

Part Four: Conserving Land and Wealth

Developers Find Payoff in Preservation

Continuing Coverage:

Letters and Opinions:

Balancing The Nature Conservancy Story (The Washington Post, 5/13/03)
Big Green Blues (The Washington Post, 5/12/03)
Forces of Nature (The Washington Post, 5/11/03)
Unnatural Relations? (The Washington Post, 5/10/03)
Nonprofits: Not So Transparent (The Washington Post, 5/7/03)

Mike Kahn, a Florida business consultant and former golf pro, advises celebrities and sports stars how they can save millions in taxes: Buy a golf course and prohibit building on the fairways.

Washington Post Reporter Joe Stephens talked about the Conservancy series in this video interview.

Jim Petterson, Director of Communications at the Nature Conservancy, took questions about the organization.
Joe Stephens fielded readers' questions online.