The Decade to Deliver

TNC is working with its partners in the U.S. Virgin Islands to restore coral reefs that are threatened by coral bleaching driven by climate change. A $6.6 million IIJA grant will be used to restore 90 acres of a coral reef within the St. Croix East End Marine Park, bolstering local fisheries as well as tourism, which accounts for more than half the local gross domestic product and employment on St. Croix. Coral restoration is labor-intensive, skilled work that supports an average of 15 jobs per $1 million invested.

The coastal rivers that flow to the Pacific Ocean are crucial for northern California’s coho salmon, and for generations, local communities relied on salmon and other migratory fish for sustenance. Habitat degradation and climate change are pushing California’s wild salmon to the brink of extinction. An $8.3 million IIJA grant aims to restore high-priority salmon habitat on three rivers in coastal Mendocino County, while also directing restoration dollars to local contractors, suppliers and businesses to support the economies of small local communities along the Mendocino Coast. An added benefit—improving floodplain water storage to reduce the worst flooding from extreme weather tied to climate change. Watch a video to see how TNC is helping to restore salmon habitat in California.

The St. Croix River forms the international boundary between Maine and New Brunswick, Canada; the homelands of the Passamaquoddy people, who call it the Skutik River. TNC Maine has partnered with the Passamaquoddy Tribes, state and federal officials, and private partners in watershed restoration, primarily through improved passage for native migratory fish. Grants totaling roughly $20 million—including $16.8 million from the IIJA and administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—will be used to increase Tribal capacity, and advance restoration projects like the fish lift at the Woodland Dam, which aims to improve critical fisheries, while maintaining hydropower for the region’s largest employer, Woodland Pulp and Paper (about 310 employees).

The Perdido Watershed Initiative is a multi-site project targeting the shorelines along the coastal communities of the Perdido River and Perdido Bay, a vitally important area for tourism and recreational boating and fishing for both Alabama and Florida. With the help of a $12.5 million IIJA grant distributed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, TNC is working with partners to restore habitat, which will enhance recreational opportunities, buffer communities from flooding and storm impacts, and improve water quality. More than 25 jobs will be supported each year for the three-year project.

For more than 35 years, the non-profit organization Urban Dreams has been a trusted source of support for the underserved communities in Iowa’s capital city, Des Moines. It provides workforce training, mental health counseling, police-community relations and a wide range of other human service programs, living up to its slogan of “Here to Help!”

Like all non-profits, Urban Dreams aims to spend as much of its money as possible on direct services. So Izaah Knox, the group’s executive director, was happy to cut the ribbon on a new solar array at the organization’s headquarters in Des Moines.

The solar installation will save Urban Dreams $3,200 a year in energy costs, money the organization is now free to reinvest in its people, mission and programming. The Urban Dreams project is one of more than sixty solar installations supported through the Grow Solar Polk County program, of which The Nature Conservancy in Iowa is a lead partner.

“Urban Dreams will benefit from the solar power generated on our roof, and the community will benefit from the resources we can save to give back to those in need,” Knox said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony in November 2023.

Making this deal even sweeter is a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which created a clean energy incentive by extending to non-profits the federal Investment Tax Credit on projects like solar or geothermal heat pumps. In the past, only homeowners and businesses (not nonprofits, given that they don’t pay taxes) could benefit from the tax credit.

Thanks to the IRA, Urban Dreams will be reimbursed a guaranteed 30% of the project cost with the added prospect of securing an extra 10% as a qualified low-income community project, culminating in a project that benefits the planet, Urban Dreams and the people of Des Moines alike.

In April 2023, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded more than $55 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to TNC and our partners to support conservation and restoration projects in Alabama, California, Ohio, South Carolina, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Washington. These projects—which include restoration work for wetlands, coral reefs, and wildlife habitats—will leverage nature-based solutions to improve community resilience to threats like flooding as well as improve the health of local ecosystems. Learn more about this announcement

TNC transferred over 9,000 acres of its Medano Zapata Ranch Preserve in Colorado’s San Luis Valley to the National Park Service for inclusion in Great Sand Dunes National Park, a transfer made possible through funding provided by the Land and Water Conservation Fund. 

LWCF is one of the nation’s most important conservation and recreation programs, supporting various benefits from landscape conservation and habitat protection to increasing outdoor recreation access. In 2020, Congress passed the Great American Outdoors Act, which made funding for the program permanent. Read more about the transfer of Medano Zapata Ranch Preserve

In Washington’s Puget Sound, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is helping restore estuaries, rebuild the Chinook salmon habitat and improve coastal resilience for local communities. 

Thanks to the investment from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, TNC is completing habitat restoration on 150 acres at our Port Susan Bay Preserve. Directly adjacent to that project is the Stillaguamish Tribe’s zis a ba II project, which will restore nearly 240 acres of estuary habitat. Together, these two projects create nearly 400 acres of continuous tidal marsh at the mouth of the Stillaguamish River. Lack of estuary habitat has been a key limiting factor for the recovery of Puget Sound Chinook salmon. These projects will significantly increase salmon habitat, improve the ecological function of the estuary and make it easier for salmon to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The restoration efforts will also increase community resilience to climate change by protecting nearby communities from storm surges and reducing flood risk. Learn more about our work in the Puget Sound.

TNC is first in the nation for the number of public-private partnerships it leads through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). USDA programs like RCPP help farmers voluntarily adopt climate-smart agricultural practices that improve soil health and productivity while addressing climate change. These conservation programs received a nearly $20 billion boost through the Inflation Reduction Act. Learn how other federal legislation like the Farm Bill incentivizes climate-smart practices.

Some American school kids are getting a quieter, cleaner ride to school thanks to the U.S. EPA’s Clean School Bus Program, which helps local school districts purchase electric and low-emissions school buses with the help of $5 billion from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The Nature Conservancy’s Maine chapter is taking a special interest in the rollout of the program. In 2021, the chapter paid for a study designed to measure the effectiveness of this new climate-friendly technology. Tracking the performance of the first electric bus purchased by a local school district, the study determined that the electric bus performed reliably, prevented more than 30,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions in less than a year. In fact, the bus performed three times as efficiently as its diesel-engine counterpart – even in winter and on long rural routes. Students riders and their drivers also enjoyed the fume-free and quiet ride.

A year later, 13 Maine school districts applied for and received funding totaling $13.3 million, to purchase 34 electric school buses to add to their fleets. In the meantime, the original electric bus has motored more than 40,000 miles without significant problems,

In its first year, the EPA program funded the purchase of 2,366 clean buses (including electric, propane and compressed natural gas vehicles) at 372 school districts across the nation.

A $1.5 million grant from the Inflation Reduction Act will allow Kelly Hicks-Holloway to expand the shade and ease the heat in St. Louis, Missouri.

Hicks-Holloway, the recently hired environmental justice lead for Forest ReLeaf of Missouri, will lead the tree canopy restoration work of Treesilience: St. Louis, an initiative that began three years ago through a partnership between ReLeaf (a non-profit tree nursery) and The Nature Conservancy’s Missouri Chapter, Davey Tree Expert Company and Beyond Housing.

The federal funds, passed through the Missouri Department of Conservation, were made possible through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the federal government’s largest ever investment in climate change solutions.

Restoring a healthy urban forest means more than planting trees. St. Louis, like many North American cities, has lost thousands of neighborhood trees to the Emerald Ash Borer, a non-native insect. Because many homeowners can’t afford to the have the dead trees removed, Treesilience aims to remove dead and dying trees and replace them with healthy trees at a 2-1 ratio. The program works with communities and the state’s urban forestry coordinator to ensure that residents support the effort, and that the reforestation is accomplished in the neighborhoods that need it most.

A recent study by The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Department of Energy shows that neighborhoods predominantly inhabited by people of color have less tree cover, resulting in 190 more deaths and 30,000 more doctors’ visits annually compared to white neighborhoods. The study estimates that an ambitious reforestation program could reduce heat-related illness and death while reducing electricity consumption and reducing greenhouse gases.

Dams, low-water road crossings and some culvert bridges pose a significant barrier to the movement of fish, cost a lot to maintain and can be a hazard for people during high-water events.

In an effort to connect stream miles and address the other concerns, TNC has been working with wildlife agencies, local governments and road districts to replace barriers with free-span bridges and other solutions that allow free movement of wildlife.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently awarded nearly $1.5 million to Crawford County for the replacement of two crossings in Huzzah Creek. TNC helped prioritize these two projects for the state and worked with partners to make the application competitive. This is the first fish passage project in Missouri funded by the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and it will open 25 miles of river, building on past replacements at Bricky Slab and Willhite Road, also located in Crawford County.

The Missouri Aquatic Connectivity Team, which is co-led by the Missouri Department of Conservation and TNC, is working to make in-stream barrier removal and bridge replacement easier, more affordable and more widely accepted as the best practice in managing streams across the state.