The Nature Conservancy. Protecting nature. Preserving life.™

Mark Tercek on the Campaign © Mark Godfrey

“What’s good for salmon will ultimately be good for all those living things that depend on these rivers and estuaries — including humans and their livelihoods.”
Mark Tercek

(December 2009)

I hope that 2009 is the year the world finally gets serious about climate change. As I write, the U.S. Senate is working on a bill, and 190-some countries are poised to agree to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions at the United Nations conference in Copenhagen in December.

At The Nature Conservancy, we got serious about climate change more than a decade ago. As our scientists observed patterns of change and foresaw growing impacts on the lands, waters and living things we protect, we could not wait for public opinion to catch up to our observations.

So we did what we always do: sought practical solutions to confront a serious threat to our natural world. What emerged were three strategies that drive The Nature Conservancy’s work to combat climate change on a global scale: protecting and restoring forests, promoting nature-based adaptations to climate change, and engaging in policy work in the United States and on the international stage.

Deforestation contributes an estimated 17 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, we believe, preventing and reversing deforestation by creating markets for the carbon contained in forests should be a big part of the solution. Of course, protecting forests also protects biodiversity.

Nature-based adaptation refers to using proven conservation methods to help people and the ecosystems we rely on recover from and resist the negative impacts of climate change. For example, we can restore and maintain mangroves and salt marshes to help cushion against higher storm surges and increased coastal erosion.

Yet conservation alone will not be enough. Effective public policy is essential, and The Nature Conservancy is playing a key role in informing and advising decision-makers at every level on policies that will reduce global-warming emissions and recognize conservation as part of the solution.

Over the years, The Nature Conservancy has emerged as a trusted advisor because of our science-based, nonpartisan approach. We speak from experience, not just theory or ideology, and no other organization has the scope or scale of on-the-ground projects that are demonstrating conservation’s potential for real climate-change solutions.

A dozen years ago, The Nature Conservancy, the Bolivian government, a local conservation organization and communities surrounding Noel Kempff Mercado National Park set out to show how intact forests can provide local economic benefits while yielding reliable measures of captured carbon for the emerging international carbon market. In 2005, the Noel Kempff project became the first avoided deforestation project in the world to receive certification by a third-party verifier.

Today, on the North Carolina coast, we are partnering with government and industry to test and refine strategies that will help communities adapt to and mitigate rising sea levels. On the other side of the world in Papua New Guinea, we’ve established the world’s first network of marine protected areas designed to help coral reefs survive and recover from bleaching events brought on by warming oceans.

Representing The Nature Conservancy as a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a group of businesses and environmental organizations that have come together to support workable policies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, I’ve seen firsthand how these and other projects in our portfolio are enlightening skeptics, motivating policy-makers and solidifying partnerships.

The threat of climate change may seem daunting, but by accelerating our conservation initiatives and using our experience to inform and support effective public policy, we can ease the threat and aid our ability to adapt. Nature isn’t just a victim of climate change. It is also a crucial part of the solution.

Mark Tercek
President and CEO
The Nature Conservancy

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