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The Nature Conservancy in Missouri Announces $18 Million Campaign for Conservation

Campaign will help preserve and conserve priority conservation areas in Missouri

ST. LOUIS — The Nature Conservancy in Missouri recently kicked off a three-year $18 million Campaign for Conservation, the first in its more than 50-year history in Missouri and the largest, private conservation campaign in Missouri.

“In this campaign, we are targeting the most ecologically important and threatened landscapes in Missouri and specific habitats outside of Missouri that are critical to our global work,” said Susan Heisel, Missouri state director for the Conservancy. “By funding our most urgent conservation needs, we will be able to make a significant impact on some of our last remaining intact, native landscapes for future generations.”

The goal is to raise $18 million for large landscape conservation areas, which include: the Ozarks and Current River watershed, Grand River Grasslands on the Missouri-Iowa border in the central tallgrass prairie, the Wah’Kon-Tah Prairie in the Osage Plains in southwest Missouri and the Mississippi River system. 

The Conservancy has already raised more than $10.5 million toward the campaign with the help of a $2 million matching gift from Howard and Joyce Wood to establish a conservation buyer program in the Current River watershed. The Wood gift must be matched by Dec 2008.

“A big part of our work in Missouri is working with conservation-minded, private landowners to determine economic and ecological measures that will help improve conservation and balance the needs of the ranching and timber industries,” said Heisel. “We need to come up with win-win solutions, especially when it comes to water quality, when everyone benefits from good results.”

The Campaign for Conservation in Missouri will address the unique landscapes across the state and conserve Missouri’s dwindling natural areas and the life they protect.

Examples:

Grand River Grasslands: grassland birds
Home to the last and largest expanse of unplowed deep-soil prairie in the region and the only place in Missouri where greater prairie chicken populations are on the rise. The prairie chickens’ elaborate mating dances on the booming grounds are a sure sign of spring. The goals in this area are to restore and protect functioning tallgrass prairie by working with landowners and conservation partners and provide critical habitat for grassland species in the 70,000-acre project area.

Ozarks: the Ozark hellbender salamander
The Current River, one of North America’s most biologically rich rivers, shelters the best known populations of 25 globally significant species, including creatures of Missouri history and Folklore like the Ozark hellbender salamander. As the largest salamander in North America, a hellbender can grow to 29 inches, weigh as much as five pounds and live for nearly 30 years. This rare, 150 million year old species has managed to survive several ice ages but may not survive the degradation of Ozarks streams.

Mississippi floodplain restoration
Not only does the floodplain filter pollutants from the river, control its floodwaters and recharge ground waters, its marshes and forests provide critical habitat for wildlife and waterfowl. Sixty percent of all North American bird species and 40 percent of the continent’s waterfowl depend upon the Mississippi Flyway, following the river to and from their breeding grounds. The Conservancy is developing a model for floodplain management that emphasizes connectivity and ecosystems management. Potentially profound in its local impact, the work along the upper Mississippi also has far-reaching consequences.  Downstream partners will benefit from a healthy river and restoration projects in Africa, Asia and South America will be able to adapt successes here to conserve major rivers around the world.

Sharing and reapplying science-based conservation means that the Conservancy’s commitment and mission doesn’t end at state or country borders. The Campaign for Conservation reaches into the Cerrado in Brazil to protect this grassland and share lessons learned from our grassland work in Missouri and in North America. Temperate grasslands are the least conserved habitat on Earth, with less than 5 percent protected.

“What Missouri does in the next three years as a result of the funding from this Campaign for Conservation will have state, national and global implications. From cross-border work on the tributaries and streams of the Mississippi River to the preservation of grasslands and other significant Missouri systems and species, it is our opportunity to save these beautiful and special places for future generations,” said Heisel.  

Honorary Campaign for Conservation chairmen include conservation and community leaders: Anita Gorman, Jonathan Kemper, Johnny Morris, Dr. Peter Raven and Howard Wood.