Ordway Prairie Preserves
Katharine Ordway’s father took a struggling company called Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing and turned it into 3M. She eventually inherited part of his fortune, and used it to buy and Read more…
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Francis Beidler Forest Sanctuary
Francis Beidler was a Chicago businessman who owned the Santee River Cypress Company. By 1905 he had stopped timbering in swamps he possessed near Charleston, South Carolina, having decided it Read more…
Henry Doorly Zoo
The Omaha Zoo was a sleepy little city-run affair, like hundreds of others, when in 1963 the widow of the publisher of the local newspaper gave $750,000 to improve the Read more…
Kentucky’s Floracliff
Mary Wharton completed a doctorate in botany at the University of Michigan, then moved to Kentucky to put her knowledge to work near her family home. She led the Georgetown Read more…
Virgin Islands National Park
In the 1940s, Laurance Rockefeller, grandson of the famous scion, began exploring the Caribbean islands with his wife, Mary, in their boat Dauntless. St. John was one of three islands Read more…
Humane Society of the United States
In the half-century or so after the civil war, a “humane” movement grew up which encouraged kindness to animals, compassion for humans, and a reverence for life. Albert Schweitzer’s 1952 Read more…
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy has more than 1 million contributing members and is the largest environmental charity in the U.S. measured by revenue (nearly a billion dollars in 2015, mostly donations Read more…
John Olin Launches Scientific Game Management
In the 1940s and ’50s, as sporting game like deer, waterfowl, and turkeys became rare amid post-war hunting and building booms, John Olin had an idea. Wildlife could be replenished Read more…
Bernheim Arboretum & Research Forest
Isaac Bernheim was a German immigrant to Kentucky who went to work as a peddler and eventually became a wealthy distiller. Grateful for his good fortune, he gave Bernheim Arboretum Read more…
Grand Teton National Park
Almost from the time that Yellowstone was established as our first national park, there was interest in extending its boundaries south to include the toothy Grand Teton peaks and the Read more…
Great Rivers Partnership
Caterpillar Inc. headquarters overlooks the Illinois River, which inspired their Great Rivers Partnership with the Nature Conservancy. The corporation’s foundation donated $12 million to the conservancy in 2005 to start Read more…
Yosemite Falls Restoration
At 2,565 feet, Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in North America, and one of the icons of the national park that encloses it. By the early 2000s, though, the Read more…
Saving Fisheries Through Catch Sharing
Concerned about the decline of the world’s fish population and the abysmal failures of existing government interventions to solve the problem, Barrett Walker decided to use market-based techniques and funding Read more…
Paying for Lynx Habitat at Loomis Forest
The Canada lynx was added to the U.S. endangered species list in 2000. One of the five areas of “critical habitat” for the animal was Loomis State Forest in Washington, Read more…
Friends of the High Line
When freight trains ran at ground level through the industrial portions of Manhattan there were so many accidents that eventually a massive effort was made to elevate the rail line Read more…
Gorges State Park
When Duke Energy started selling most of its landholdings in the 1990s, conservationists took an interest. One section alone where the Piedmont hills meet the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Read more…
University of Montana Study of Blackfoot Reservation
The swift fox is the smallest of North America’s wild canids, weighing only 4 to 6 pounds, or not much more than an average house cat. Historically, the animal ranged Read more…
Rose Center for Earth and Space
Sometimes the vision and management direction a philanthropist offers to a project can be as valuable as his money. Financier Richard Gilder was a longtime member of the board of Read more…
Kentucky Natural Lands Trust
In the 1920s, Grover Blanton purchased 2,300 acres of forested land on Pine Mountain in Harlan County, Kentucky. It was one of the few ancient forests left in the state, Read more…
Arc of Appalachia Preserves
The Arc of Appalachia isn’t a government park, and it’s not run by professionals, but it’s one of the more ambitious land-preservation efforts of recent years. Nancy Stranahan and Larry Read more…