Nature Group Saves 75 Key Ecosystems : Environment: Nature Conservancy buys prairies, waters, streams, islands and forests in ‘last great places’ campaign. It also strives to turn neighbors into preservation partners.

Five years and $300 million ago, John Sawhill, president of the Nature Conservancy, had an idea on how better to protect some of the nation’s most precious ecosystems--”the last great places,” he called them.

His vision has turned to reality as the conservation group marked the success last week of its most ambitious environmental rescue mission ever: the preservation of 75 unique prairies, watersheds, streams, islands and forests that are home to hundreds of rare and endangered animals and plants.

Not only looking to shelter pieces of land, the project has focused on ensuring that the areas--from a string of barrier islands off Virginia to a 500-square-mile ranch in the New Mexico Badlands--will stay protected by looking to the lands around them.

The $300 million collected in five years--about a fifth of it from corporate donors--also is unprecedented in any environmental organization, according to the conservancy.

“It’s much larger than anything that’s ever happened in the environmental movement,” said Sawhill, a former college president and deputy energy secretary in the Jimmy Carter Administration, who became head of the conservancy in 1990.

The conservancy is distinct from many environmental organizations in that it does not lobby Congress or argue government policies. Its focus for four decades has been to work with private parties to purchase environmentally sensitive land to set it apart for protection.

More than $130 million was used to buy pieces of the last great places under this program. At the same time, the group devoted almost as much money to try to make those who live and toil near the set-aside properties partners in species protection.

“We wanted to be at the table”--a part of the community--”but just buying land was clearly not enough,” Sawhill said. “This was very much a departure from our tradition.”

Sawhill recalled that when the conservancy purchased some islands along the Clinch River in Tennessee years ago, scientists discovered that rare mussels were still dying on the property because of pollution 30 miles upstream. Now $500,000 has been earmarked to try to kick-start a broader river-protection effort.

Dubbed “the last great places” campaign, the project runs the gamut of environmentally precious ecosystems.

A showcase is the tall grass prairie preserve established by the conservancy 55 miles northwest of Tulsa, Okla., at a cost of $15 million. Two years ago, the group placed 300 bison on the 30,000 acres, making it a growing environmental attraction.

Off the Virginia coast near the lower Chesapeake Bay, the conservancy moved to protect a string of 14 barrier islands under the threat of recreational sprawl and development.

Although the organization had purchased the islands earlier, that wasn’t enough, Sawhill said. A broader project steered economic development on the mainland toward promoting environmentally friendly businesses, organic farming and sustainable fisheries and controlling coastal development.

In northern Indiana, the conservancy purchased 225 acres of timberland and introduced more environmentally protective farming practices along Fish Creek, home to an assortment of rare species, including a mussel believed to be unique.

At times, the group’s projects were met with skepticism. Ranchers in the New Mexico Badlands were concerned when the conservancy bought the 322,000-acre Gray Ranch.

“We were buying half of a county in a place where generally environmentalists are not all that well thought of,” said Michael Coda, a conservancy staffer. Since then, the ranchers have banded together to promote improved grazing practices and keep their land intact.

“Now I think people feel pretty good about it,” Coda said.