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The Nature Conservancy in Texas Press Releases
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Niki F. McDaniel
Senior Media Relations Manager, nmcdaniel@tnc.org, 210-224-8774, ext. 217

Nature Conservancy receives $1.5 million from Brown Foundation

Grant will support expansion, scientific study of Davis Mountains Preserve in West Texas

San Antonio, TX —22, February, 2006—The Nature Conservancy of Texas has received a grant of $1.5 million from the Houston-based Brown Foundation to be used to conserve habitat for wildlife in the Davis Mountains of Far West Texas.

The Nature Conservancy has been working in the Davis Mountains for nearly 20 years to preserve this spectacular wild landscape and habitat for rare and endangered plants and animals in Texas’ second-highest mountain range. Often described as a sky island rising out of a desert sea, the mile-high Davis Mountains are believed to be the southernmost extension of the Rockies, and provide an alpine-like setting at the highest elevations for flora and fauna that are relicts of a cooler age – many of which are found nowhere else on Earth.

The range’s highest peak, Mount Livermore, rises to 8,378 feet on the 32,000-acre Davis Mountains Preserve, created in 1997 with the purchase of a historic ranch.

“The Brown Foundation’s support of our Davis Mountains Project in 1999 and in 2001 has been instrumental in getting that project off the ground and bringing it to fruition, helping to fund our original land purchases to conserve this exceptionally beautiful and ecologically rich area of Texas,” said Carter Smith, Texas state director for The Nature Conservancy.

“This new grant from the Brown Foundation will help pay for a purchase of a 10,000-acre tract that connects two separate preserves, creating a contiguous protected landscape and conserving the entire Madera Canyon watershed, which supplies critical water needs for both wildlife and people.”

Specifically, the grant will help the non-profit Nature Conservancy pay for the purchase of the 10,000-acre tract, support scientific study related to prescribed burning and other management techniques, and help pay for restoring and maintaining the natural systems and processes that support wildlife.

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The Nature Conservancy is an international, nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its nearly 1 million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped protect more than 117 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. In the Lone Star State, The Nature Conservancy of Texas owns 35 nature preserves and conservation properties and assists private landowners to conserve their land through more than 70 voluntary land-preservation agreements. The Nature Conservancy of Texas protects 250,000 acres of wild lands and, partners, has conserved close to a million acres for wildlife habitat across the state. Visit The Nature Conservancy of Texas on the Web at nature.org/texas.