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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
At 14, Fred Meijer joined the new grocery store business of his parents, immigrants from Holland, and in 1962 he started building what would become known as superstores. By the Read more…
This is a test of Local Achievements
In Florida, management of water is crucial to human residents, agriculture, and wildlife. The rain that falls on the savannahs in the center of the state fills the Kissimmee River, Read more…
When the Fort Worth Zoo was owned and operated by the city, money was scarce, facilities were outdated, and attendance was dropping. In 1991, the middling public facility was almost Read more…
The Richard King Mellon Foundation has been one of the nation’s most active conservers of American land over the last generation. (See separate 1988 entry.) Protecting Civil War battlefields has Read more…
Jim and Mary Faulkner began purchasing timberlands in New Hampshire in 1937, and over time assembled what is now the Andorra Forest—11,500 acres strong, and productively used and enjoyed in Read more…
On the list of Americans who own the most land, media mogul Ted Turner has been No. 1 or No. 2 for much of the last couple decades. His two-million Read more…
Atlanta had no botanical garden until 1973 when a group of civic-minded residents gathered and offered up the resources for launching a private nonprofit to create and run a garden Read more…
The Richard King Mellon Foundation established its American Land Conservation Program in the late 1980s and then spent more than $400 million to conserve 190 different pieces of land—like 375,000 Read more…
When wolves were first reintroduced to the greater Yellowstone region, Hank Fischer, the regional director of Defenders of Wildlife, set up a meeting with 20 local livestock producers to discuss Read more…