5 Forward-Thinking Organizations Dedicated To Conservation

With climate change already affecting communities around the world, ecological conservation is more important than ever. As global temperatures rise, many ecosystems, and the animal and plant life they support, are under threat, requiring the intervention of organizations dedicated to keeping the environment healthy. This list, presented in no particular order, surveys groups working to preserve nature.

At #1. we've got The Varda Group, established in 2003 by Kelly Rigg and Remi Parmentier. The organization provides strategic advice, campaign expertise, and coordination services across a wide range of international environmental and social issues. It has arms in The Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. There is also the Varda Foundation, a not-for-profit group that has the capacity to carry out charitable projects.

Varda identifies its mission as creating maximum change for the benefit of people and the planet. It aims to achieve this by developing and implementing projects that facilitate the improvement of the environment, public health, and social welfare, and by building the capacities of the non-governmental organizations it works with. Clients have included UNAIDS, Shark Alliance, and Canopy Planet, among many others.

#2 on our list is the Bolsa Chica Conservancy. It's a private, not-for-profit organization that provides services to stimulate community involvement in restoration and education in wetland science, watersheds, coastal ecology, and environmental sustainability.

Established in 1990 by a coalition of government, community, business, and environmental leaders, the group maintains the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, an estuary that was home to Native Americans as far back as 8,000 years ago. At 1,449 acres, it is the largest saltwater marsh between Monterey Bay and San Diego.

The #3 entry is The Maine Land Trust Network, which aims to build and sustain land trusts in The Pine Tree State, as well as other organizations engaged in land conservation, drawing upon their collective expertise and resources to ensure responsible and successful ecological caretaking. Established in 1995, the group is led by a steering committee representing up to 25 member land trusts.

These community-supported efforts have conserved more than 2.5 million acres of the state's land

Maine is home to more than eighty non-profit land conservation organizations, stretching from Aroostook County in the north to York County at the New Hampshire border. These community-supported efforts have conserved more than 2.5 million acres of the state's land, in the process expanding public access to the outdoors, supporting rural economies, and preserving history.

#4 is Escondido Creek Conservancy, which seeks to enhance the lives of people and wildlife in the watershed it maintains by leading, educating, and advocating for the natural world. It was established in 1989 and has worked to preserve over 3000 acres in north San Diego County.

The group prioritizes properties that include or support habitats with high biological diversity, and those which are contiguous to other preserved open space lands. The Conservancy also provides watershed education programs to thousands of youth and adults every year.

Finishing things up at #5, it's The Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project, working to rescue and establish sustainable assurance colonies of amphibian species that are in extreme danger of extinction throughout the Central American nation. It was created in 2009 as a partnership between a group of American zoos and nonprofits.

The organization maintains a large facility in Gamboa at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, where it builds captive populations of species at risk of extinction from the deadly amphibian chytrid fungus. It also offers online educational activities.