From the State Director

Santa Cruz Island, California
© Robbie Fisher / TNC

This year we lost a great friend and founding board member of The Nature Conservancy in Mississippi. In June, Charlie Deaton passed away. Charlie was a great Mississippian and a valuable and faithful trustee of The Nature Conservancy from the inception of the Mississippi Chapter in 1989 until his death. He also served on the Conservancy’s national Board of Governors in the 1980s, including serving as Vice Chair, and was awarded the prestigious national Oak Leaf award by the organization. I am glad we were able to honor Charlie during his lifetime for his tremendous contributions to conservation in Mississippi by dedicating the Charles M. Deaton Preserve in 1999. He will be missed greatly, but his wonderful legacy will live on.

Over the last year, I have had the opportunity and pleasure to see The Nature Conservancy’s work in a different part of the world as well as other areas of the United States. Last fall, I visited the Amazon River Basin in Ecuador, which has an amazing number of species of birds, animals and plants. As I traveled through the jungles of the rainforest, I was reminded of the beauty and critically important habitat our Pascagoula River Basin provides for Neotropical migrating birds, such as the prothonatory and Swainson’s warblers. Both places share similarities in their biological richness and in their need for preservation and protection.

In March, I visited Santa Cruz Island 25 miles off the coast of California. The Nature Conservancy and United States Park Service share ownership of the 96-acre island, which is a middle island in the Channel Islands National Park. Santa Cruz Island has more than 1,000 species of plants and animals, including the Santa Cruz Island fox. The Nature Conservancy is working with the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other partners on a science-based Island Fox Recovery Project to save the animal from extinction. This effort reminded me of our efforts in Mississippi to save the endangered Mississippi gopher frog from extinction. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service translocated Mississippi gopher frog eggs to an ephemeral pond on Nature Conservancy property and are currently studying the effects of the translocation to determine tadpole and frog populations. This is one of only three sites in the world where the frog is known or believed to occur. We must carefully maintain the property for the frog and for other plants and animals that live there.

Later this past spring, I visited the Conservancy’s Tall Grass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma. This beautiful 40,000 acre preserve is home to Bison, prairie chickens and hundreds of native prairie plants. As I gazed out upon the prairie, I was again reminded of Mississippi’s beauty and its two types of native prairies, Blackland Prairie and Jackson Prairie. Prairie systems once dominated much of central and northeast Mississippi. However, today much of Mississippi’s unique prairie is now pasture land or has been developed for residential or commercial use.

In this report, you will read about a gift from a generous donor that will provide The Nature Conservancy an opportunity to restore prairie areas near Forrest, Mississippi. You will also learn about our progress in Northeast Mississippi on the Buttahatchee River Watershed project. We continue our cross-boundary effort with the Alabama and Louisiana Chapters working on the Pearl River and Gulf of Mexico projects. Our continuing partnership with the military at Camp Shelby made for special research findings this last year, and our restoration progress along the Gulf Coast was unprecedented. And, as you read further, there is much more the Mississippi Chapter accomplished.

None of this could be possible without the support from individual member donors, corporate and foundation supporters, agency partners and volunteers. Collaborating and leveraging donated resources is a strength and commitment of The Nature Conservancy.

Thanks to your support we are making a difference on the ground and across waterways in Mississippi.

Robbie Fisher
State Director
rfisher@tnc.org

For more information, please contact Robbie Fisher, State Director.

The Nature Conservancy
Mississippi Field Office
405 Briarwood Drive, Suite 101
Jackson, MS 39206
(601) 713-3165