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Pine Island, known to the Passamaquoddy as Kuwesuwi Monihq, had been designated as belonging to the tribe in a state of Massachusetts for their role in supporting the colonies during the Revolutionary War.
The new state refused to honor the treaty and illegally sold the Passamaquoddy lands.
In recent years, members of Indigenous tribes in Maine, conservation groups and land management agencies have come together in an initiative known as First Light to build relationships and work toward the return and sharing of land.
Today, more than lands are privately owned, and more than half of the state is owned by timber interests.
In the forested island was up for sale, the tribe approached First Light to share the history of the island and request assistance.
Working with partners, The Nature Conservancy negotiated the purchase of the land and provided funds for the Passamaquoddy to buy it back.
This is an important step forward in the tribe’s efforts to restore sovereignty and the right to be Passamaquoddy people, says Soctomah.
—DUSTIN SOLBERG A Tribe in Maine Welcomes an Island’s Rightful Return An Indigenous community reclaims a piece of its native land. People and Place: Darrel Newell, vice-chief of Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township, visits Pine Island after its return to the tribe.
Grasslands are the most imperiled landscape on Earth.
the government’s vision to protect of its land, ocean and fresh water by 2030 as the country transitions away from oil to a forest-based economy.
Kenya, where we’re working with partners from the northern grasslands to the coast to create community-initiated and private conservancies.
This project could add new protected areas and improve management on existing spaces to conserve nearly as well as improve opportunities and resource rights for 10 million people.
Mongolia, home to the world’s largest intact temperate grasslands.
ER Partnering with Indigenous peoples and other communities to learn from and support their leadership in stewarding the environment, securing rights to resources, improving economic opportunities and shaping their future.
People Ensuring women and girls have equal access to the knowledge and insight they need to uplift their communities is a critical steppingstone to finding lasting solutions for people and the planet.
In both Kenya and Papua New Guinea, The Nature Conservancy can share examples of how women’s groups are learning about the value of mangrove forests surrounding their coastal towns and villages and then coming together to safeguard them.
Mangroves are supertrees: They buffer against storms, prevent coastal erosion and absorb about four times more carbon than their terrestrial counterparts, making them an especially important natural climate solution.
Many reef fishes, sharks and economically valuable species like crab begin their early lives in mangrove ecosystems.
Yet globally, mangroves face threats—such as timber cutting, pollution and coastal building projects—that clear out entire forests.
and the partners helping them sustain these life-giving forests.
In Papua New Guinea, TNC and Mangoro Market Meri, or “Mangroves, Women and Markets,” have built support for sustainable harvests of shellfish, new local businesses and exploring new opportunities in climate mitigation.
Across the world in Kenya, the members of the Mtangawanda Women’s Association plant and restore mangrove forests with technical support from TNC and partners in Kenya.
—DUSTIN SOLBERG Every year, farmers at work under Nicaragua’s tropical sky watch for the promise of abundant rains in the month of May.
But if the rains are late or fail altogether, drought compounds the pressures of the dry season, diminishing harvests and milk production on family dairy farms.
In response, The Nature Conservancy teamed up with LALA Group, the region’s largest dairy company, to make farms more sustainable by providing farmers with technical and financial assistance to transform typical small-plot grass pastures with plantings of diverse shrubs and trees.
The mix offers shade, restores water sources, locks in soil nutrients, supports biodiversity and ensures a longer grazing season.
It also means more volume and higher-quality milk—and better incomes.
This Resilient Central America project, administered by TNC through funding from the U.S. Department of State and with expertise from TechnoServe and LALA, has introduced these agroforestry pasture systems on model farms and trained 700 farmers.
And what has proved successful in the Nicaragua countryside is now reaching farms in Mexico and elsewhere in Central America.
—DUSTIN SOLBERG Growing Healthy Pasturelands in Nicaragua Working with farmers to plant trees transforms grazing and boosts earnings.
Supertrees: Women in coastal communities in Kenya are successfully protecting and restoring mangrove forests.
It really can’t be done, because there is no separation between people and nature.
Yet in the conservation movement, an impassioned pursuit to create balance in how we live with the world around us, people have often missed this simple fact.
Conservation— which, let’s not forget, was invented by people—has often seemed willfully blind to the role people play.
We can no longer expect to advance a vision that does not include listening and building trust in communities that have been left out, seemingly by design.
In fact, efforts to protect nature have excluded many of these communities through racial, economic and other barriers.
We are starting to look at our work differently, challenging ourselves to see possibilities for building honest relationships in situations where we once only saw opportunities for transactions aimed at meeting our own objectives.
As The Nature Conservancy takes on urgent work with and for, and how we work across cultures and power differences, across lands and waters, is going to matter.
We are learning to respect the idea that people should get to define the impact that conservation is having on their lives.
Because we want to move toward that future together, some of our assumptions need to be unlearned.
If we truly want to overcome barriers to progress and make change possible, no one can be excluded.
Regardless of where we’ve been, our way forward must be built on reciprocity, partnership and mutual benefit.
Our mission is to protect the lands and waters on which all life depends, leaving no one out.
When Micheal Taylor was a teenager looking for his first job in heard about a chance to work in the outdoors.
It wasn’t just any job; it was ecological restoration work—something he’d never really encountered before.
Intrigued, he applied to the GulfCorps program, a Nature Conservancy-NOAA partnership with funding from the RESTORE Council.
GulfCorps was recruiting young people willing to swing an ax, plant native trees and build new oyster reefs—all to help the U.S. Gulf Coast recover from the approximately 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
“There’s a lot of work to do, and it’s hard,” Taylor recalls thinking after his first weeks on the job.
of 280 GulfCorps alumni who have moved on to new careers in the environmental field.
He now works on a state fire crew restoring Florida’s longleaf pine savannas.
This year, thanks to more than $RESTORE Council, which directs funds from oil spill civil penalties, GulfCorps is recruiting another 400 crew members over the next four years to work on projects in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
TNC’s GulfCorps director, Jeff DeQuattro, says the crews are there to restore nature while preparing for their own futures through mentors and real-life lessons, like how to ace a job interview.
Training for Life: For GulfCorps alumni like Micheal Taylor, setting out to work in the field has led to discovering an environmental career.
and get an introduction to careers in natural resources.
Impassioned Pursuit: We need to erase the line separating those who benefit from conservation and those who don’t, says Meera Bhat, TNC’s director for equitable conservation.
says conservation needs to welcome those who have been excluded.
RR I n fiscal year operating in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic, and we adjusted our operations and tactics in anticipation of a possibly sizable decline in revenue.
However, a combination of factors—economic stimuli by governments around the world, a sharp rebound in financial market performance, and the continuing commitment and generosity of our supporters—helped make it our most successful financial year on record as a revenue matter.
We also saw our year of improvement in the strength of our balance sheet, which positions us to aggressively tackle our ambitious new 2030 Goals.
During this challenging year, the priority focus of our management team was twofold.
First, the pandemic required undertaking work differently and more creatively, such as collaborating primarily over video conferences rather than in person.
A critical priority was tending to the safety and well-being of our staff to ensure that we could continue to advance our mission.
We dedicated significant energy to enabling our staff, supporters and conservation partners to engage virtually, and to providing new tools, equipment and business processes to staff, allowing them to safely, securely and effectively conduct business remotely.
Second, we completed the articulation of our Goals—a long-term vision for the ambitious but essential work we must do over the next decade to protect biodiversity and reduce the impacts of climate change in collaboration with partners around the globe.
We focused our efforts and resources on accelerating our conservation plans, enabled by leading-edge financial, information technology, and investment management tools and strategies.
For the fiscal years ending on June % of each dollar spent 1 Not intended to represent increase in net assets.
future gifts, collateral received under securities lending agreement, notes receivable, right-of-use assets, and deposits on land and other assets.
payable under securities lending agreement, planned-giving liability, lease liability and other liabilities.
Note: The figures that appear in the financial summary shown are derived from the financial statements that have been audited and have received an unqualified opinion.
Letter From the Chief Finance and Administrative Officer Financial Overview for Fiscal Year In total, financial results achieved during the last year outperformed our initial expectations and, as such, allowed for an increase in spending on conservation activities, despite prudent budgetary contractions planned in response to the pandemic.
The increase in conservation activities was offset by a somewhat smaller amount of spending on conservation land purchases, which varies from year to year.
Fundraising from private donors reached a record high, buoyed by a gift of $Earth Fund to support climate outcomes across multiple continents.
expressed by so many of our supporters, whether by joining us for virtual visits and trips rather than in person, or by expanding the flexibility of their gifts to accommodate our unusual operating circumstances.
and active management decisions by our team of investment professionals.
We are, as always, grateful to our donors, collaborators and supporters for their partnership in protecting nature’s biodiversity and strengthening its resilience in the face of a changing climate during this critical decade for the planet.
Connie and Nick LaFond are passionate about helping wildlife in their home state of Minnesota.
Connie serves as board treasurer for the International Wolf Center, keeps healthy prairie habitat on her property for native birds and is a licensed in-home wildlife rehabilitator.
Over the years, she has cared for raccoons, coyotes, squirrels, owls and even a river otter, but her specialty is foxes.
In addition, Connie and Nick, who is a retired physician, converted a portion of their hobby farm to house orphaned, sick and injured red and gray foxes—taking in a record number of 17 last year for rehabilitation.
Still, the most meaningful way to help wildlife, says Connie, is to protect habitat.
As longtime TNC supporters, the LaFonds in future of natural places.
“The Conservancy does a really good job of solving the habitat issue, both from a global, big-picture perspective and at the local level,” says Connie.
Relying on Connie’s decades of experience as a certified public accountant, the LaFonds decided the best way to support TNC’s future work was through a bequest and a deferred gift annuity.
The annuity will support TNC’s work, says Connie, as well as provide an upfront tax deduction for part of the gift, and a guaranteed return at a good rate.
left a legacy for nature by remembering The Nature Conservancy in their estate plans.
Planned gifts to the Conservancy totaled more than $year alone.
This extraordinary support ensures that TNC can continue to innovate as we work toward our ambitious goals to create a future where nature and people thrive around the globe.
We are grateful for the ongoing support of all our donors.
put science into action to build a healthier planet, a safer world, and a more equitable society.
We are scientists, engineers, economists, activists, and everyday people working together to make change happen.
If you feel as though you’ve spent hope and fear, progress and regression, celebration and mourning, you are not alone.
The excitement of a new administration was followed by destabilizing attempts to overturn a fair and legal election.
The tremendous promise of mass vaccination was undermined by misinformation about vaccines, leading to a surge in infections.
Despite growing awareness of injustices, too many systems that prop up the status quo seemed to grind on.
We took hit after hit from ever more intense wildfires, storms, f loods, and drought, but we also welcomed a renewed focus on slowing climate change—by the White House as well as several states.
All of us at UCS have been working as hard as we can to ensure that science, progress, and justice ultimately prevail.
From the smallest successes to the biggest wins this year, your support has been crucial.
With the Biden administration signaling a commitment to scientific integrity from day one, UCS laid out a path for restoring the role of science in federal policymaking.
We’ve pushed for the urgent, ambitious action that is so clearly needed on climate change—ranging from dramatic cuts in carbon emissions from all sectors of the economy to adaptive measures that will protect outdoor workers from extreme heat.
We’ve invested in partnerships, networks, and coalitions to build a base for action that will be broad enough to match the scope, scale, and speed of the challenges we face.

Pine Island, known to the Passamaquoddy as Kuwesuwi Monihq, had been designated as belonging to the tribe in a state of Massachusetts for their role in supporting the colonies during the Revolutionary War.

The new state refused to honor the treaty and illegally sold the Passamaquoddy lands.

In recent years, members of Indigenous tribes in Maine, conservation groups and land management agencies have come together in an initiative known as First Light to build relationships and work toward the return and sharing of land.

Today, more than lands are privately owned, and more than half of the state is owned by timber interests.

In the forested island was up for sale, the tribe approached First Light to share the history of the island and request assistance.

Working with partners, The Nature Conservancy negotiated the purchase of the land and provided funds for the Passamaquoddy to buy it back.

This is an important step forward in the tribe’s efforts to restore sovereignty and the right to be Passamaquoddy people, says Soctomah.

—DUSTIN SOLBERG A Tribe in Maine Welcomes an Island’s Rightful Return An Indigenous community reclaims a piece of its native land. People and Place: Darrel Newell, vice-chief of Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township, visits Pine Island after its return to the tribe.

Grasslands are the most imperiled landscape on Earth.

the government’s vision to protect of its land, ocean and fresh water by 2030 as the country transitions away from oil to a forest-based economy.

Kenya, where we’re working with partners from the northern grasslands to the coast to create community-initiated and private conservancies.

This project could add new protected areas and improve management on existing spaces to conserve nearly as well as improve opportunities and resource rights for 10 million people.

Mongolia, home to the world’s largest intact temperate grasslands.

ER Partnering with Indigenous peoples and other communities to learn from and support their leadership in stewarding the environment, securing rights to resources, improving economic opportunities and shaping their future.

People Ensuring women and girls have equal access to the knowledge and insight they need to uplift their communities is a critical steppingstone to finding lasting solutions for people and the planet.

In both Kenya and Papua New Guinea, The Nature Conservancy can share examples of how women’s groups are learning about the value of mangrove forests surrounding their coastal towns and villages and then coming together to safeguard them.

Mangroves are supertrees: They buffer against storms, prevent coastal erosion and absorb about four times more carbon than their terrestrial counterparts, making them an especially important natural climate solution.

Many reef fishes, sharks and economically valuable species like crab begin their early lives in mangrove ecosystems.

Yet globally, mangroves face threats—such as timber cutting, pollution and coastal building projects—that clear out entire forests.

and the partners helping them sustain these life-giving forests.

In Papua New Guinea, TNC and Mangoro Market Meri, or “Mangroves, Women and Markets,” have built support for sustainable harvests of shellfish, new local businesses and exploring new opportunities in climate mitigation.

Across the world in Kenya, the members of the Mtangawanda Women’s Association plant and restore mangrove forests with technical support from TNC and partners in Kenya.

—DUSTIN SOLBERG Every year, farmers at work under Nicaragua’s tropical sky watch for the promise of abundant rains in the month of May.

But if the rains are late or fail altogether, drought compounds the pressures of the dry season, diminishing harvests and milk production on family dairy farms.

In response, The Nature Conservancy teamed up with LALA Group, the region’s largest dairy company, to make farms more sustainable by providing farmers with technical and financial assistance to transform typical small-plot grass pastures with plantings of diverse shrubs and trees.

The mix offers shade, restores water sources, locks in soil nutrients, supports biodiversity and ensures a longer grazing season.

It also means more volume and higher-quality milk—and better incomes.

This Resilient Central America project, administered by TNC through funding from the U.S. Department of State and with expertise from TechnoServe and LALA, has introduced these agroforestry pasture systems on model farms and trained 700 farmers.

And what has proved successful in the Nicaragua countryside is now reaching farms in Mexico and elsewhere in Central America.

—DUSTIN SOLBERG Growing Healthy Pasturelands in Nicaragua Working with farmers to plant trees transforms grazing and boosts earnings.

Supertrees: Women in coastal communities in Kenya are successfully protecting and restoring mangrove forests.

It really can’t be done, because there is no separation between people and nature.

Yet in the conservation movement, an impassioned pursuit to create balance in how we live with the world around us, people have often missed this simple fact.

Conservation— which, let’s not forget, was invented by people—has often seemed willfully blind to the role people play.

We can no longer expect to advance a vision that does not include listening and building trust in communities that have been left out, seemingly by design.

In fact, efforts to protect nature have excluded many of these communities through racial, economic and other barriers.

We are starting to look at our work differently, challenging ourselves to see possibilities for building honest relationships in situations where we once only saw opportunities for transactions aimed at meeting our own objectives.

As The Nature Conservancy takes on urgent work with and for, and how we work across cultures and power differences, across lands and waters, is going to matter.

We are learning to respect the idea that people should get to define the impact that conservation is having on their lives.

Because we want to move toward that future together, some of our assumptions need to be unlearned.

If we truly want to overcome barriers to progress and make change possible, no one can be excluded.

Regardless of where we’ve been, our way forward must be built on reciprocity, partnership and mutual benefit.

Our mission is to protect the lands and waters on which all life depends, leaving no one out.

When Micheal Taylor was a teenager looking for his first job in heard about a chance to work in the outdoors.

It wasn’t just any job; it was ecological restoration work—something he’d never really encountered before.

Intrigued, he applied to the GulfCorps program, a Nature Conservancy-NOAA partnership with funding from the RESTORE Council.

GulfCorps was recruiting young people willing to swing an ax, plant native trees and build new oyster reefs—all to help the U.S. Gulf Coast recover from the approximately 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

“There’s a lot of work to do, and it’s hard,” Taylor recalls thinking after his first weeks on the job.

of 280 GulfCorps alumni who have moved on to new careers in the environmental field.

He now works on a state fire crew restoring Florida’s longleaf pine savannas.

This year, thanks to more than $RESTORE Council, which directs funds from oil spill civil penalties, GulfCorps is recruiting another 400 crew members over the next four years to work on projects in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

TNC’s GulfCorps director, Jeff DeQuattro, says the crews are there to restore nature while preparing for their own futures through mentors and real-life lessons, like how to ace a job interview.

Training for Life: For GulfCorps alumni like Micheal Taylor, setting out to work in the field has led to discovering an environmental career.

and get an introduction to careers in natural resources.

Impassioned Pursuit: We need to erase the line separating those who benefit from conservation and those who don’t, says Meera Bhat, TNC’s director for equitable conservation.

says conservation needs to welcome those who have been excluded.

RR I n fiscal year operating in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic, and we adjusted our operations and tactics in anticipation of a possibly sizable decline in revenue.

However, a combination of factors—economic stimuli by governments around the world, a sharp rebound in financial market performance, and the continuing commitment and generosity of our supporters—helped make it our most successful financial year on record as a revenue matter.

We also saw our year of improvement in the strength of our balance sheet, which positions us to aggressively tackle our ambitious new 2030 Goals.

During this challenging year, the priority focus of our management team was twofold.

First, the pandemic required undertaking work differently and more creatively, such as collaborating primarily over video conferences rather than in person.

A critical priority was tending to the safety and well-being of our staff to ensure that we could continue to advance our mission.

We dedicated significant energy to enabling our staff, supporters and conservation partners to engage virtually, and to providing new tools, equipment and business processes to staff, allowing them to safely, securely and effectively conduct business remotely.

Second, we completed the articulation of our Goals—a long-term vision for the ambitious but essential work we must do over the next decade to protect biodiversity and reduce the impacts of climate change in collaboration with partners around the globe.

We focused our efforts and resources on accelerating our conservation plans, enabled by leading-edge financial, information technology, and investment management tools and strategies.

For the fiscal years ending on June % of each dollar spent 1 Not intended to represent increase in net assets.

future gifts, collateral received under securities lending agreement, notes receivable, right-of-use assets, and deposits on land and other assets.

payable under securities lending agreement, planned-giving liability, lease liability and other liabilities.

Note: The figures that appear in the financial summary shown are derived from the financial statements that have been audited and have received an unqualified opinion.

Letter From the Chief Finance and Administrative Officer Financial Overview for Fiscal Year In total, financial results achieved during the last year outperformed our initial expectations and, as such, allowed for an increase in spending on conservation activities, despite prudent budgetary contractions planned in response to the pandemic.

The increase in conservation activities was offset by a somewhat smaller amount of spending on conservation land purchases, which varies from year to year.

Fundraising from private donors reached a record high, buoyed by a gift of $Earth Fund to support climate outcomes across multiple continents.

expressed by so many of our supporters, whether by joining us for virtual visits and trips rather than in person, or by expanding the flexibility of their gifts to accommodate our unusual operating circumstances.

and active management decisions by our team of investment professionals.

We are, as always, grateful to our donors, collaborators and supporters for their partnership in protecting nature’s biodiversity and strengthening its resilience in the face of a changing climate during this critical decade for the planet.

Connie and Nick LaFond are passionate about helping wildlife in their home state of Minnesota.

Connie serves as board treasurer for the International Wolf Center, keeps healthy prairie habitat on her property for native birds and is a licensed in-home wildlife rehabilitator.

Over the years, she has cared for raccoons, coyotes, squirrels, owls and even a river otter, but her specialty is foxes.

In addition, Connie and Nick, who is a retired physician, converted a portion of their hobby farm to house orphaned, sick and injured red and gray foxes—taking in a record number of 17 last year for rehabilitation.

Still, the most meaningful way to help wildlife, says Connie, is to protect habitat.

As longtime TNC supporters, the LaFonds in future of natural places.

“The Conservancy does a really good job of solving the habitat issue, both from a global, big-picture perspective and at the local level,” says Connie.

Relying on Connie’s decades of experience as a certified public accountant, the LaFonds decided the best way to support TNC’s future work was through a bequest and a deferred gift annuity.

The annuity will support TNC’s work, says Connie, as well as provide an upfront tax deduction for part of the gift, and a guaranteed return at a good rate.

left a legacy for nature by remembering The Nature Conservancy in their estate plans.

Planned gifts to the Conservancy totaled more than $year alone.

This extraordinary support ensures that TNC can continue to innovate as we work toward our ambitious goals to create a future where nature and people thrive around the globe.

We are grateful for the ongoing support of all our donors.

put science into action to build a healthier planet, a safer world, and a more equitable society.

We are scientists, engineers, economists, activists, and everyday people working together to make change happen.

If you feel as though you’ve spent hope and fear, progress and regression, celebration and mourning, you are not alone.

The excitement of a new administration was followed by destabilizing attempts to overturn a fair and legal election.

The tremendous promise of mass vaccination was undermined by misinformation about vaccines, leading to a surge in infections.

Despite growing awareness of injustices, too many systems that prop up the status quo seemed to grind on.

We took hit after hit from ever more intense wildfires, storms, f loods, and drought, but we also welcomed a renewed focus on slowing climate change—by the White House as well as several states.

All of us at UCS have been working as hard as we can to ensure that science, progress, and justice ultimately prevail.

From the smallest successes to the biggest wins this year, your support has been crucial.

With the Biden administration signaling a commitment to scientific integrity from day one, UCS laid out a path for restoring the role of science in federal policymaking.

We’ve pushed for the urgent, ambitious action that is so clearly needed on climate change—ranging from dramatic cuts in carbon emissions from all sectors of the economy to adaptive measures that will protect outdoor workers from extreme heat.

We’ve invested in partnerships, networks, and coalitions to build a base for action that will be broad enough to match the scope, scale, and speed of the challenges we face.