We must protect more land than ever

Our ambitious mission

The Nature Conservancy's mission is to conserve the land and waters on which all life depends.

Our vision is a world where the diversity of life thrives, and people act to conserve nature for its own sake and its ability to fulfill our needs and enrich our lives.

We are one of the world’s largest conservation organisations. Founded in 1951 in the United States of America, we now work in 70 countries, with nearly 4,000 staff – including 400 scientists. We’re a not for profit, non-government, non-partisan organisation. 

What makes us different?

Striving to make a real difference to protect and conserve the Australian environment for the benefit of people and nature, we pride ourselves on five key strengths in the way we work.

1. We get things done

We’re proud to be very action-oriented in our approach to conservation. While we invest in policy formulation, public awareness campaigns and other forms of indirect conservation action, most of our efforts are applied directly in the field to make an immediate difference for conservation.

See for yourself with these examples: 

• making history with Australia's largest land purchase for conservation.
• restoring lost shellfish reefs across the southern coasts of Australia. Once abundant, now over 90% of them are wiped out.
• reducing destructive late season wildfires in the Northern Territory and reducing carbon emissions.
• conserving part of the world’s largest intact desert in Western Australia.
• developing the world's first metropolitan-wide urban forest strategy.

2. We’re highly trusted 

In 2018, for the fifth time, The Nature Conservancy was named as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere Institute, an independent research centre. This honour recognises our focus on ethics and integrity in everything we do. We were the only philanthropic organisation to be recognised. The diversity of partners we work with here in Australia in business, government and local communities also demonstrates the high levels of trust these entities place in us.

3. We’re efficient

Working closely with a range of partners such as farmers, fishers, Indigenous rangers and other environmental groups means we conduct our work in the most efficient way possible. In fact, 76% of our funding goes directly to supporting our conservation projects. We’ve had more than 65 years’ experience in getting this right.

4. We’re experts in our field 

Our Australian team includes a range of expert specialists, about half of whom are scientists with marine biology, ecology, zoology or forest conservation backgrounds. You can meet each of our Australian program scientists and learn about what they do here. Being part of a global team working across 70 countries and 9 territories means we can also draw on the 400 other scientists employed by The Nature Conservancy globally.

5. Our work has the highest impact

We’re highly focused on conservation work that has the highest possible impact on a landscape or seascape scale. Take for example: 

• our shellfish reef restoration projects underway in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland (unique to The Nature Conservancy in Australia)
• our impact investment project in the Murray-Darling Basin balancing agriculture, finance and the environment – an Australian first.
• our urban forest strategy for metropolitan Melbourne. Another first for Australia and the world.

You can learn more about the impacts we’re having across Australia here.