The Nature Conservancy - The Alabama Chapter

The Nature Conservancy is an international nonprofit organization whose mission is to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. Globally, the Conservancy has protected more than 117 million acres since its formation in 1951. The Alabama chapter was formed in 1989; more than 149,000 acres of conservation land have been protected in the state, including 17 owned preserves.

In North Alabama, the Conservancy in partnership with the Forever Wild Program purchased 21,510 acres of upland forests, creeks, streams and caves along the Alabama and Tennessee state line, including the spectacular Walls of Jericho. Many in the South have heard of the legendary Walls of Jericho, but few have visited. Once part of Texas oil baron Harry Lee Carter’s 60,000 acre property, the land was divided and officially closed to visitors in 1977 after Carter’s death. The Conservancy has restored public access to the site, enabling a new generation of conservationists to seek inspiration there. Preserving this site protects the headwaters of the Paint Rock River Watershed as well as one of the few large, intact functional landscapes remaining in the southeastern United States and connects other large, intact forest lands in the Southern Cumberland Plateau. It also protects an extraordinarily diverse array of creatures, among them rare fish and 48 species of freshwater mussels—many globally imperiled. Migratory songbirds, including the Cerulean warbler, also frequent the forests of the watershed.

The Nature Conservancy works to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. From the Paint Rock River in the far northern reaches of Alabama to the Cahaba River in the state’s heartland to the Gulf Islands along the Alabama coast, the need for conservation is great. Alabama, with its wide variety of habitats-mountains, valleys, plateaus, coastal plain and highlands - has the fourth greatest biological diversity of any state in the nation – but it ranks first in the continental United States in number of already extinct species.

Fifteen percent of the state’s native plants and animals are rare or at risk of extinction. Much of Alabama’s biological richness lies in its marvelous rivers. With more than 77,000 miles of perennial and intermittent streams in 18 river systems, Alabama has often been called the River State. Alabama’s waters are home to valuable populations of fish, mussels, aquatic snails, aquatic insects, turtles and crustaceans found nowhere else on Earth.

The Nature Conservancy of Alabama works with a wide variety of partners to plan and implement conservation of land and water based on sound science through an approach called Conservation by Design. We pursue non-confrontational, pragmatic, market-based solutions to conservation challenges. As a result of its efforts, The Nature Conservancy has protected more than 149,000 acres in Alabama. These results assure the wonderful richness of Alabama’s natural heritage will be available for generations to come.