Tnc Community history

The Nature Conservancy officially forms and is launched into land protection on Christmas Eve 1954 when neighbors of a 60-acre forest in New York were given an ultimatum: bid on the wooded ravine or see it developed.

TNC bought its first 60-acre property, Mianus Gorge, in 1955, sparing it from the development that surely would have spread from nearby New York City.

The Nature Conservancy Records (CONS245) were collected in order to complement other conservation-related holdings (both manuscript collections and publications) that are part of the Conservation Collection, which was established in 1960 by author and conservationist, Arthur H. Carhart.

In 1965, TNC received the first of three Ford Foundation Grants.

The Virginia Coast Reserve was first begun in 1969 to protect nesting shore birds in particular from a developer who wanted to continue the development in overcrowded Virginia Beach to the barrier islands.

After graduating from Harvard, Paulson went to work at the Pentagon, where he served as staff assistant to the assistant secretary of defense until 1972.

The Nature Conservancy employed a novel strategy in acquiring 35,000 acres of Mississippi swampland in 1973.

Pat Noonan became president of TNC in 1974.

In 1976 TNC sold the land to the state of Mississippi for use as a state park.

In 1978 TNC spent $2.8 million on its largest purchase at the time, buying nine-tenths of Santa Cruz, an isolated island off California whose rare native plant species had been severely threatened by feral pigs and 30,000 sheep, which TNC would have to eradicate.

Pat Noonan stepped down as president in 1980 but continued to serve as a consultant, as TNC required all the creativity it could muster.

Negotiations for the acquisition had begun in 1982.

By 1984 TNC had invested $25 million in the Virginia Coast Reserve, now expanded to include deepwater frontage along the eastern shore of the Virginia mainland.

TNC began a unique program, surveying 25 million acres of Department of Defense property, in 1988.

In 1989 The Nature Company, a Berkeley, California catalog merchandiser, entered a partnership with TNC whereby it processed new memberships and donated a portion of its product sales.

Income at the time was $168 million and in 1990 membership reached 600,000 as the last of 50 state chapters was added.

Corporate giving accounted for $2 million, or 16 percent, of TNC income in 1991.

In 1992 TNC helped broker a compromise between the Walt Disney Company, which wanted to expand its Orlando theme park, and the state of Florida, which wanted to protect adjacent wetlands.

Membership reached 766,000 in 1993, revenues were $280 million, and nearly eight million acres had been protected.

In 1999, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) published Ecoregional Planning in the Northern Great Plains Steppe, which, for the first time, pinpointed specific, critical areas of the Northern Great Plains that were the most viable for conserving the existing diversity of plants and animals.

In June 2001, The Prairie Foundation was officially formed as an independent non-profit organization, later named American Prairie Foundation, then American Prairie Reserve, and now known as American Prairie.

Ever since 2004, TNC has formally established a partnership with the State Forestry Administration of China.

In May 2006 Paulson was nominated by United States Pres.

In 2008 Paulson became the designated leader of the Bush administration’s attempt to stem a credit crisis resulting from widespread losses on faulty or subprime mortgage loans made by financial institutions.

In 2010, TNC Yunnan Office submitted its documents for record to Yunnan Provincial Civil Affairs Department according to the Interim Provisions on the Regulation of Overseas Non-Governmental Organizations in Yunnan Province.

In 2011, TNC participated in and supported China Three Gorges Corporation to change the traditional operation mode of the dam.

In 2012, TNC entered into a Letter of Intent for the Yangtze-Mississippi Green Partnership on behalf of the United States Department of State with Yangtze River Basin Fishery Resources Management Commission – the first NGO-led partnership ever formed under the China-US Green Partnership Framework.

In 2016, China launched the ocean initiative formally.

The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Administration of Activities of Overseas Non-governmental Organizations in the Mainland of China (ONGO Law) came into effect on January 1st 2017, and since then, its implementation has garnered significant attention from ONGOs and other stakeholders.

The first marine protected areas, totaling 81,000 square miles were created in 2018.