Collins Projects

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Background:
In 2003, Patsy Bullitt Collins left The Nature Conservancy a generous bequest of $28.8 million dollars. The trust was divided into three equal sections: The World Conservation Fund, the US Conservation Fund and the Northwest Conservation Fund. A third of this donation established the Northwest Conservation Fund for conservation in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. The purpose of this fund is to promote excellence in stewardship by supporting innovative and high-profile activities that deliver on-the-ground results.

Funding Criteria:
The bequest of the Collins Unitrust to the Conservancy presents a unique opportunity to enhance appreciation and understanding for excellence in land conservation. Projects are funded based on the following criteria:

Science-based stewardship on Conservancy-owned lands/lands of partner organizations. The Conservancy leads by example by demonstrating the importance of a long-term commitment to stewardship. Projects address a critical conservation need that the Conservancy, other NGO’s, and public agencies are failing to address and for which alternative funding sources are unlikely.
Engagement of partners. Collins funds are dedicated to projects that provide a model of innovative approaches to land/water management that meet critical needs of public and private partners. Land/water managers and research staff from partner organizations are involved, at the optimal level, in project design and implementation.
Exportable. Each Collins-funded project has a clearly articulated “export” strategy. The strategy may focus on the adoption of practices by adjacent land/water managers, the promotion in scientific journals and through papers presented at conferences, and/or advancing a policy objective.
Meaningful scale. Collins funds are targeted towards projects that are working at scales that are ecologically meaningful for multiple conservation targets and that have the potential to have wide-ranging impacts on best management practices on the ground.
Long-term in nature. Stewardship is by nature a long-term endeavor, requiring persistence and continuity in information, resources, and methods. Collins-funded projects recognize these constraints and articulate long-term stewardship commitments and responsibilities. Collins funds are viewed as “start-up” funds with award amounts tapering off over the project duration, supplanted by other public and private support.
Excellence. We anticipate that each Collins-funded project will become a touchstone for best practices that become widely known in conservation circles. Collins-funded projects are recognized for their scientific excellence, creativity, applicability and impact.

Collins Projects in Washington:

This project is testing a variety of combination strategies for prairie restoration, including mowing, herbiciding, burning, and sowing of native seeds with 11 sites across the Willamette Valley - Puget Trough - Georgia Basin ecoregion.

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This project is developing a broadly applicable toolkit for comparing the potential effect of alternative restoration approaches on the long-term adaptability of estuaries to climate change impacts. At estuaries in Washington and Oregon, staff will use field data and models to test for vulnerable points in the ecological processes that drive estuary function, evaluate different ways of increasing resilience to those vulnerabilities, and select the most effective actions for application.