The Nature Conservancy Receives $15,000 for Environmental Education from Keyspan Foundation

Funds to Support High School Education, Shellfish Restoration, Water Quality Enhancement

Cold Spring Harbor, NY—April 18, 2006—The Nature Conservancy announced today that it has been awarded a $15,000 grant for environmental education from the KeySpan Foundation. A long-term supporter of The Nature Conservancy, the KeySpan Foundation has donated a total of $135,000 since the foundation’s inception in 1999. KeySpan additionally supports The Nature Conservancy through its corporate giving program.

The $15,000 grant will aid The Nature Conservancy in its environmental education efforts and will ultimately result in shellfish restoration and water quality improvement in Long Island’s harbors, bays and estuaries. Specifically, the funds will help underwrite the costs of an education and hard clam nursery project with Western Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) working with local high school students. The program aims to increase students’ appreciation and understanding of the importance of mariculture and to help restock Long Island coastal waters with hard-shelled clams.

“This generous contribution, and the on-going support from the KeySpan Foundation will help expand the Conservancy’s innovative shellfish restoration efforts across Long Island’s bays and harbors,” said Nancy Kelley, executive director of The Nature Conservancy on Long Island. “It will also assist us in realizing our recently launched campaign, Long Island’s Last Stand, a 10-year initiative to restore hundreds of thousands of acres of important marine habitat and preserve the Island’s remaining critical open space. We are thankful for their support.”

Raising hatchery-reared hard clams to a size that is large enough to protect them from most predators and then stocking them in harvest-free areas has been identified as an important component of The Nature Conservancy’s large-scale efforts to restore self-sustaining natural populations of hard clams in the Great South Bay.

In this program, 20-25 tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade students will have the opportunity to construct a clam nursery raft (7ft x 12ft) to grow seed clams under controlled conditions while being exposed to a new and exciting field. Through field trip excursions and classroom lectures, students will develop an understanding of marine ecology, the anatomy and physiology of hard-shelled clams, scientific procedures used in mariculture research, data collection and evaluation, and the socio-political issues involved in the shellfish industry. The project culminates with students releasing approximately 100,000 immature clams onto the bay bottom.

To date, the Conservancy has stocked nearly 1 million hard clams in the Great South Bay.

During the 1970s, there were enough hard clams to filter 40% of the Great South Bay every day. Today, only 1% of the Great South Bay is filtered daily. Restored and properly managed shellfish populations can renew once-thriving fisheries and recreational opportunities that are part of Long Island’s rich maritime heritage.