Rethinking the Idea of Preservation

Some people call it the new realism. Some call it strange bedfellows.

Whatever the label, this new form of partnership that brings environmentalists and landowners together is a change in strategy for the 40-year-old Nature Conservancy. Traditionally, this 650,000-member environmental organization identified land that needed to be saved and bought it. For the last few years, however, the Conservancy--citing Nipomo Dunes as a pioneering model--has begun rethinking the notion of “preservation.”

“But we’re just starting to define it,” says Kelly Cash at the Conservancy’s Washington headquarters. “After years of acquiring isolated examples of land with endangered plants or animals and preserving them, we are starting to add humans to the ecosystem.”

The new philosophy is twofold, she says:

“First, how can it be preserved? Second, how can it be a boon to the local economy?”

Projects on property owned or managed by the Nature Conservancy illustrate a variety of approaches:

* In southeastern Arizona, a 315-acre bird preserve is generating millions of eco-tourism dollars annually by attracting bird-watchers from around the world.

* In Ohio, the Conservancy is working with farmers to develop a solar-powered hay-drying facility, so they can concentrate on growing alfalfa to help stem runoff from a major watershed.

* In Idaho, a land exchange between a potato farmer and the Bureau of Land Management protected the breeding grounds of the sharp-tailed grouse.

* In Nevada, a lease-repurchase plan that helped a three-generation cattle ranch avoid foreclosure, meant preservation of a major unprotected waterfowl haven.

The Conservancy is also exploring the idea of marketing a mail-order catalogue that would feature specialties from Conservancy preserves, such as smoked oysters, hand-made quilts and crab boil from the Virginia coast.

“We are thinking creatively,” Cash says. “We want to be more than an environmental machine gobbling up land.”