Natural Heritage Operations Merge to Protect Threatened Plants, Animals

The Nature Conservancy & Western Pennsylvania Conservancy chart strategic direction

HARRISBURG – At a time when Pennsylvania lands and waters are being altered, state government and conservation organizations are moving to protect threatened species and our natural heritage.

After nine months of evaluation and strategic planning, The Nature Conservancy’s Pennsylvania Chapter and the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy agreed this week to unify their natural heritage operations under the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. The two conservancies have hosted separate programs in western and eastern Pennsylvania for the past 25 years, as partners in the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program (PNHP), along with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

PNHP provides science-based information that guides conservation work and land-use planning for government agencies, corporations, and the conservation community. It is the single comprehensive source of information on the state’s protected and vulnerable species and natural communities.

“The information collected by the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program has led to the protection of many of the Commonwealth’s irreplaceable treasures,” said Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Michael DiBerardinis. “With protecting our natural heritage as a common goal, we are pleased that the outstanding work done in the past by two conservancies will now become one seamless effort.”

“The Commonwealth is blessed with tremendous forest, freshwater, and other natural resources, and Pennsylvania is rich in plants and animals that depend on these natural resources to survive – including many globally rare species,” said Bill Kunze, the Nature Conservancy’s state director in Pennsylvania. “We depend on these resources as well: our three great watersheds - the Ohio, the Susquehanna, and the Delaware - supply drinking water for tens of millions of people in Pennsylvania and beyond. Our forests contribute more than $5 billion to Pennsylvania's economy and support nearly 100,000 jobs related to forest products. Sustainable management of these natural resources is an investment that benefits people as well as wildlife, and a strong, unified Heritage program is an indispensable part of this investment.”

“We believe merging our two natural heritage operations into one strategically focused organization enables us to make the best use of our conservation dollars by capitalizing on efficiencies and reinforcing the Heritage Program’s central role in conserving our state’s biodiversity,” said Dennis McGrath, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy president. “It also allows for a clearer strategic direction, eliminates operational inefficiencies, and reduces costs associated with managing more than 70 grants and contracts, while enhancing the program’s conservation leadership and guidance.”

Under the agreement, The Nature Conservancy’s heritage staff became employees of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy on July 1, and science operations of PNHP now reside solely with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. The combined staff will continue to operate from its existing offices in Middletown and Pittsburgh. The Nature Conservancy will remain an active supporter of PNHP, continuing to provide data and analysis to the program. PNHP’s information and expertise will continue to play an important role in planning The Nature Conservancy’s conservation work in Pennsylvania.

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The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States—including more than 40,000 acres in Pennsylvania —and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. For more information visit www.nature.org/pennsylvania.

The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, Pennsylvania’s first conservancy, is a membership-based conservation organization established in 1932. The WPC protects, conserves and restores land and water for the diversity of the region’s plants, animals and their ecosystems. Through science-based strategies, collaboration, leadership and recognition of the relationship between humankind and nature, the WPC achieves tangible conservation outcomes for present and future generations. The WPC has been entrusted with preserving Fallingwater® , the masterpiece home built by Frank Lloyd Wright in Mill Run, Pa. Visit: www.paconserve.org.

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is the chief steward of and advocate for the state’s natural resources.