Borders delineate one territory from the next across Utah's rich landscape; fences and lines on maps distinguish one community from another and one county from its neighbor.
But it is the diverse map of ecoregions beneath the man-made borders that are most important to The Nature Conservancy -- and protection of species and lands in this network of ecoregions is at the heart of the $32 million Lasting Landscapes Campaign announced Tuesday by the Conservancy.The campaign is largest public/private conservation initiative ever attempted in Utah.
Former Sen. Jake Garn, vice chairman of the Huntsman Corp., was scheduled to announce the conservancy's plan at a noontime meeting of the Rotary Club of Salt Lake. Before the announcement, Garn lauded the conservancy strategy that targets voluntary conservation and cooperation in local communities.
"Lasting Landscapes is an ambitious program with a big price tag. But with rising land costs, this is an investment we must make," Garn said. "Our quality of life tomorrow will depend on conserving Utah's critical lands today."
The campaign's goal is to address the accelerating loss of Utah's wetlands, farmlands, riparian systems, critical wildlife habitats and key natural areas, and to preserve the biodiversity of the state through conservation of critical lands.
"The goal is not to lock up or exclude people," said Dave Livermore, state director of the Nature Conservancy of Utah. "Instead it is to bring people closer to the land and plan wisely for the future."
The group also announced an $8 million commitment from the George S. and Delores Doré Eccles Foundation to help kick off the campaign. Three million dollars of the gift will be given outright, and $5 million has been pledged on a 4-to-1 match over five years.
The commitment is the largest private donation to conservation in Utah history and one of the largest the Nature Conservancy has received nationally.
Gov. Mike Leavitt said the Utah Lasting Landscapes Campaign represents a major contribution to critical lands in the Beehive State.
"By working cooperatively, with diverse partners, the conservancy is able to achieve lasting conservation results," Leavitt said. "The Nature Conservancy is one of the most effective conservation organizations I know."
The announcement came on the same day the conservancy ran a full-page advertisement in local papers featuring prominent Utah people who support the group.Nature Conservancy mapRequires Adobe Acrobat.
The campaign will initially target six high-priority areas: the Great Salt Lake, the Provo River/Utah Lake area, Utah High Plateaus, the Colorado River Corridor, the Dugout/Canyonlands area and the Virgin River Basin.
Because of its international significance as an ecological resource, special emphasis is being placed on the Great Salt Lake. Nearly $17 million in public and private funds -- more than half of the campaign total, will go to protect critical wetlands, upland and salinity resources for the lake.
"This is a campaign about land. But it is also a campaign about people," said John Milliken, co-chairman of the conservancy's Utah chapter board. "Nowhere is this more important than on the Great Salt Lake. If we are to protect this ecological treasure, we're going to have to bring all the communities around the lake together."
The group will use a series of strategies toward this goal. Establishing and taking an inventory of the ecoregions and creating the "conservation blueprint" come first. "This has never been done in Utah," said Livermore. It is an important step, because it helps answer the much-asked question, "How much preserved land is enough?"
For the first time, the conservancy will have a good idea what it will take to preserve Utah's unique biodiversity," Livermore said.
The group will then target large intact landscapes of 50,000 acres or more, looking for important sites to preserve and then taking action where appropriate. This could mean buying land or improving the ecological "health" of an area.
Community outreach -- building on the philosophy of outdoor classrooms, for example -- will be a large part of the new campaign, Livermore said.
"The idea is to bring people back to the land and back to natural surroundings," he said. "We'd like to re-educate folks about what's here."
The local campaign, part of a larger national effort, will guide the conservancy for five years, Livermore said. And in a time when much information about the environment paints a doom-and-gloom picture, the Lasting Landscape Campaign instead offers a clear picture of what needs to be done and how much it will cost, he said.
"This is a message of hope."