Dear Investor,
The devil we'd like you to join in a realty deal with us is the she--devil in "Anna Christie,"
Eugene O'Neill's great old play. Poor Anna's father, seadog Christopher Christopherson, knew who had dashed their hopes: "Dat ole davil, sea, sooner, later, she swallow dem up." (Act II.)
Now. Here's how you join us and dat ole davil in a fantastic real estate deal: a string of 18 barrier islands protects the east shore of Virginia's Delmarva Peninsula, the finger of land that forms an outer edge of Chesapeake Bay. Lovely beaches, millions of birds, glorious scenery.
"Ah!" said our 19th-century, entrepreneurial ancestors. "It's Beulah land!" So they built hunting lodges, then big resort hotels, even a town called Broadwater. Coney Island, Miami Beach -- you name it -- were on their way....
Enter the davil, swallowing. Broadwater is under the Atlantic. Hurricanes and waves splintered the hotels. The sea keeps patting up a sand spit here, gulping down a dune there, growing salt marshes, spawning fish. Perfect places to lay an egg, raise a fox kit, have a fawn. But the developers' hopes and prices sank.
So we bought 13 of these islands. They're now the Virginia Coast Reserve: owned, protected and managed for the sea and its rich progeny by The Nature Conservancy.
Share the deal with us, won't you?
The islands cost four and a half million. But you can buy a bit of them -- and 2,812 other parcels of land, just as wild and splendid -- for less than you'd spend on half a barrel of light crude, delivered direct to your tank or crankcase from OPEC. Just $10. Tax deductible. Doesn't that suggest it's time you knew us, if you don't already?
The Nature Conservancy is a non-profit conservation organization -- with a difference. Like most conservation groups, and I hope like you, we feel it's urgent to preserve what we can of the world's natural balance before human kind wobbles it too far.
But we don't sue or picket or preach. We simply do our best to locate, scientifically, those spots on earth where something wild and rare and beautiful is thriving, or hanging on precariously.
Then we buy them.
We're good at it. In just over three decades we've acquired -- by purchase, gift, easement and various horse trades -- Rhode Island, twice over: some 1,800,000 acres, scattered over 2,800 spots, from Panama to every one of our 50 states to Canada and back to the Caribbean.
Our taste, like nature's, is catholic. Recently we've acquired and protected eleven islands in the Potomac River, and two off California: huge Santa Cruz, and little Castle Rock -- 14 acres that serve as airport and motel for 100,000 birds, as well as a hauling-out site for seals and sea lions. We got
AMTRAK to agree not to tamper with 4 miles of right of way near Kalamazoo which contain 15 threatened or rare plants. Want a rare plant site? Yours, for $10.
We outbid several land developers at an outdoor auction to buy 145 lovely, wild acres just 55 miles southwest of Chicago. For a dollar a year, a big paper company agreed to protect a golden eagle nesting spot it owns in the Adirondacks. A utility, at our request, detoured a power line around a
sanctuary in the Big Thicket area in Texas -- then gave us their right of way. We've bought a few Oregon acres to save a tiny butterfly; thousands of Texas marsh acres -- winter refuge for arctic peregrine falcons and whooping cranes. Save a crane. $10.
Do we keep all that property? No. We deed or lease or sell much of it to various government bodies and educational institutions which can promise (with appropriate legalities) to preserve it, as is, with public access, for all caring people. But we also administer much of it ourselves and maintain 720 natural area sanctuaries, with or without partners. You can be a stewardship partner. For $10.
We have some 300 expert employees, from canny lawyers to Ph.D. ecologists, with offices in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Boston and Arlington, Virginia. There are 35 active Nature Conservancy
chapters in 29 states. Look in your phone book, or call me: (703) 841-5388. I'll tell you if you're near enough to drop in on a chapter for a warm welcome, or to visit one of our sanctuaries, for soul warming.
Tell your friends it's yours, for $10.
I know you're near enough to several of our properties, wherever you live or vacation in the U.S.A., to get to them easily. Take the family, a date, or a child if you have one handy. (The wild land will still be there when the child grows up.)
Look for such things as Henderson's fawn lily, black-crowned night herons, the beaked dodder, twig-rush, cinnamon teal, Table Rock (can't miss it; towers 700 feet over the Rogue River). Every one is rare or threatened. But it's safe under our wing.
That jaunt will heighten your interest in other Nature Conservancy programs. For example, we're well along on an enormous, on-going inventory of the "natural elements" in 29 states. These "State Natural Heritage Programs" help the states (and all conservationists) identify their unique or invaluable and rare plants, locales, animals, birds, bugs, whatever natural resources or wonders need help.
Another example:
We have to date raised $29,000,000 for the Land Preservation Fund. And because we can stretch a dollar like you wouldn't believe, we expect that revolving $29,000,000 to protect $200,000,000 worth of land in the next decade. Watch us stretch your $10.
But if we're wallowing in $29,000,000, why do we need you? Because you'll be one of about 134,000 of us, and that's a pile of tens. Because we urgently need your informed interest in our work. We need your curious ear and intelligent voice.
We'd like to hear your ideas, use your volunteer services when you have time, know that you're with us.
To keep in touch, we'll send you THE NATURE CONSERVANCY NEWS every other month.
It's a compact (no ads, 32 pages), strikingly illustrated magazine. Every issue has several well informed
articles on some aspect of the lands we're working to save: from the ecology of America's deserts to what goes on in a rain forest. (Lots.)
These issues describe our newest projects, invite you to join any of our well-led tours of the properties, keep you up-to-date on your fellow members. You'll also receive bulletins about our projects in your area, chapter meetings and so on. We won't send you a lot to read. We will give you many opportunities to have some adventures, meet some bright and friendly people -- and buy land, with us.
Please join us, right now. Like this:
Tick and initial the "Membership Application" form that's right in front of you.
Remove, sign and pocket the attached Interim Membership card. Mail the form with or without your $10 check (Glad to bill you later, but be sure to write "Tax deductible" on your check stub).
That's it, you're in. Put the oak leaf sign on your bumper, boat, bike, poolside. Quite a few people who count will recognize it and smile benignly. Watch for your welcoming kit in a few weeks: your permanent membership card, and a handsome decal. And shortly, your first issue of THE NATURE CONSERVANCY NEWS. You're automatically a member of a Nature Conservancy chapter in your state if we have one. (If we don't yet -- there's an idea for you.)
Welcome, Dear Fellow Conservationist. You've just made a devilish good bet that we may still save our ark.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Nancy C. MacKinnon Membership Director NCM/cv