Seventy Years of Conservation, Guided by One Question

One theme from TNC’s history surfaced repeatedly, TNC’s willingness to test ideas that were sometimes far from mainstream. Perhaps no example illustrates that better than prescribed fire.

When Ladd began advocating for controlled burns in Missouri’s woodlands and grasslands, the concept was controversial. Decades of fire suppression had convinced many people that all fire was harmful. Yet ecological research increasingly showed that periodic fire had shaped many of Missouri’s most diverse natural communities.

Before joining TNC’s staff, Ladd volunteered to help conduct prescribed burns on TNC properties. Those early efforts were met with skepticism, and in at least one case, outside leaders tried to stop a planned burn altogether. But TNC pressed forward.

Leaders asked questions, weighed risks and ultimately allowed staff to test a strategy supported by emerging science.

Today, prescribed fire is widely recognized as one of the most important tools for restoring healthy forests, woodlands and prairies. State agencies, federal partners, nonprofits and private landowners routinely work together to apply fire across Missouri’s landscape.

The lesson, Ladd says, extends well beyond fire. Time and again, TNC has stepped into innovative spaces to test a new technique whose outcome was uncertain. By taking carefully considered risks, we often helped demonstrate what was possible so others could follow.

While innovation has played a central role in TNC Missouri’s history, Ladd believes partnership has been equally important. No single organization, agency or landowner can conserve Missouri’s natural heritage alone.

The restoration of northern Missouri’s grasslands offers a powerful example. Prairie conservation evolved from scattered acquisitions into a landscape-scale vision that connected landowners, government agencies and conservation organizations around shared goals.

Properties like TNC’s Dunn Ranch Prairie became more than protected landscapes. They became demonstration sites that showed how large-scale prairie restoration could support wildlife, improve habitat and reconnect Missourians with an ecosystem that once covered millions of acres.

The same partnership model has shaped work on rivers, forests and agricultural lands across the state.

For Ladd, effective conservation is rarely about drawing lines between people and nature. It is about finding solutions that benefit both.

After seven decades of progress, conservation remains an unfinished story.

Today’s challenges are different from those we faced in 1956. Climate change, shifting land use, renewable energy development and growing demands on natural resources require conservationists to think at larger scales and anticipate new pressures.

Ladd notes that some future challenges will arrive unexpectedly. Others may emerge as opportunities that conservationists cannot yet fully imagine. He believes the key is maintaining the qualities that have guided TNC for decades: scientific inquiry, adaptability and a willingness to learn.

“We have to think about how everything is connected,” he says. “People and nature are always part of the discussion.” That philosophy mirrors the one that inspired TNC Missouri’s founders 70 years ago. Their work began with a simple question and a conviction that action mattered.

Along the way, volunteers became conservation leaders. Small projects grew into landscape-scale efforts. New ideas changed how Missouri manages forests, rivers and prairies.

Most importantly, generations of supporters, donors, scientists, landowners and community partners continued asking what could be done and then taking the next step forward. Ladd believes those founders would be proud of what followed.

“I don’t think they would have anticipated