Protecting Missouri's Landscapes

The Nature Conservancy took up the mission to conserve and protect Missouri’s vital landscapes more than 60 years ago. We work to boost biodiversity, repairing and nurturing the habitats that shelter native plants and wildlife. That has long included stewarding our own preserves across the state, but the mission extends beyond property lines. With our partners, we leverage our preserves to develop, test and demonstrate practices that are good for the land and that make good financial sense for landowners and communities.

Whether it’s helping ranchers implement sustainable grazing methods or teaming up with state fire crews on controlled burns, sustainable land management practices have a powerful impact. They can boost soil fertility, sequester carbon, conserve water and create habitat. We’re working with others to create solutions and put those solutions to work.

As part of our commitment to collaboration, we have developed a network of Habitat Strike Teams in Missouri. The small but efficient crews are staged in priority areas around the state, currently the Eastern Ozarks, Western Ozarks, Osage Grasslands and Grand River Grasslands.

They increase the overall capacity for well-managed fires in Missouri, because their agility means they can plug in on prescribed burns with federal agencies, landowners and other conservation organizations in need of extra hands.

But the teams do more than fire. They work with partners to connect quality habitat, tackling the problem of invasive species that threaten native landscapes and contribute to the broader biodiversity crisis.

TNC has expanded those efforts beyond the Buyers Fund footprint to protect the karst systems in the Interior Highlands region, which extends across large swaths of Missouri, Arkansas and part of eastern Oklahoma. Karst systems are porous networks of caves, sinkholes and springs. They support some of the world’s most biodiverse places, including numerous species that live only in the Ozarks.

These areas are essential puzzle pieces in globally important ecosystems, and they’re under a lot of pressure. Our goal for land protection across the state is to ensure critical landscapes and habitats remain intact for future generations.

Native forage grows well in the summer when fescue tends to be challenging to keep active. This means increased weight gain for livestock.

Additionally, native grasses have deep, complex root systems that can stretch as deep as 15 feet below the surface. These roots stabilize soil, store carbon and absorb and hold rainwater, which can help in times of heavy rain or drought.

Demonstration projects at TNC’s Little Creek Farm and a grassbank, both located at our flagship Dunn Ranch Prairie preserve in northwest Missouri, showcase the benefits of native forage. Here, we test grazing practices that landowners and producers can replicate on their land.

We help connect landowners with cost-share programs and other incentive programs, such as the Climate-Resilient Crop and Livestock project that supports the adoption of climate-smart practices for Missouri producers.

Helping Missouri landowners convert pastures to native, warm-season grasses is a win for nature and can help increase producers' bottom line.

Another collaborative effort is the Horizon II project. The goal of the Horizon II project is to demonstrate how farmers can get environmental credit compensation and renewable energy revenue by harvesting prairie and winter crop biomass. Horizon II is a partnership of 13 public and private entities led by Roeslein Alternative Energy and funded by a grant from the USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program. 

For years, we have welcomed researchers to our preserves to study everything from sustainable grazing to the lives of lizards. Our new Centers for Conservation Innovation (CCI) take our support to another level. The CCI program is a network of TNC properties managed to offer opportunities to research natural systems, test new conservation strategies in a real-world setting and educate the public.

We currently have three centers established across the state:

• Grand River Grasslands CCI: Located at TNC’s Dunn Ranch Prairie in northwest Missouri which includes Little Creek Farm, our sustainable agriculture demonstration farm. Here conservation themes include tallgrass prairie restoration, prescribed fire training, hydrological restoration, sustainable grazing, soil health and biodiversity research.

• Missouri River CCI: Overlooking the Missouri River in Boone County, this center focuses on floodplain and wetland restoration, environmental education, agroforestry, recreation and perennial agriculture, which is the cultivation of crops that live through multiple growing seasons.

• Ozark Woodlands CCI: Near Van Buren in southern Missouri, the site features restoration of characteristic Ozark habitats, prescribed fire training opportunities and the potential for biodiversity and land management research.

TNC staff are developing individualized plans for each center with input from partners and stakeholders, tailoring the operations to take advantage of opportunities unique to their landscapes and ecosystems.

The model addresses a key barrier in conservation research at a time when Missouri’s wild places need more help than ever. Those places and the opportunities to study them are disappearing.

U.S. policies and resulting violence against Native peoples destroyed those connective webs and caused lasting, ongoing harm to Tribes, who have been longtime stewards of the land. Returning the buffalo is a gesture of healing.

In the first three years of the partnership, more than 1,000 buffalo were transferred from TNC preserves, including Dunn Ranch, to Native lands.