“Conserving land is a fundamental value
that Americans share, and it doesn’t blow
in the wind.”
—TPL’s Ernest Cook
including a near doubling of the federal Land and
Water Conservation Fund over constrained FY08 levels.
“The fiscal crisis may complicate these efforts,”
Front says, “but through the will of key decision makers
in Washington, there may indeed be a way.”
One new element in the federal conservation
spending equation will be climate change, which the
administration has put high on its list of initiatives. As
climate change forces vulnerable species from their current habitat, the conservation and restoration of new
habitat lands will be essential to maintain flora and
fauna that otherwise would be lost. Conserved forest-lands also can act as an important sink for atmospheric
carbon. Federal climate change legislation is expected to
consider—and, it is hoped, fund—conservation to meet
these and other public policy priorities, including preserving the lands that store and safeguard the nation’s
water supplies.
Front is optimistic that the time is right for a major
federal commitment to conservation. “Both on Capitol
Hill and at the White House, there are leaders with just
the right instincts, skills, backgrounds, and conservation
passion to make a difference,” he says. “So in a time of
economic despair, we see hope for conservation.”
DONORS MAY BE KEY
Conservation donors also are feeling the pinch, as
might be expected with the dramatic decline in the
stock market, says TPL’s Betsy McGean, who ran a
recently completed fundraising campaign to protect the
Page Pond and Forest, a much-loved community landscape in Meredith, New Hampshire. McGean was in
the unenviable position of wrapping up her campaign
last fall, as the stock market tumbled hundreds of
points each day. A number of prospective donors were
reluctantly forced to reconsider their pledges as, day by
day, they watched their personal wealth shrivel. While
the state and the town had committed substantial public
funds for the project, project managers were counting on
ALDEN WARNER
Despite the worsening economy, voters nationwide approved more than
$8.4 billion in state and local conservation spending in 2008. In Windsor
Locks, Connecticut, nearly 90 percent of voters approved funding to
protect the town’s last remaining open space.
up to $1 million in donated private funds to complete
the effort. For a while last September, it looked like the
project was in trouble.
Then several things happened. Because of the real
estate slump, TPL was able to renegotiate the price of the
land and gain an extension for raising the money—more
evidence that the recession can take with one hand and
give with the other. With the funding gap narrowed, one
intrepid donor ignored the economic risk and came up
with a $100,000 challenge grant to match new donations. Attracted by the prospect of doubling their support, more than 100 people from the small town and
beyond dug into their pockets to conserve the land—
many making a second or third donation in spite of hard
