Conservation Group Thanks Area Business Contributors

The Nature Conservancy’s Northwest Arkansas Corporate Council for Conservation lunch recently packed a meeting room at Pinnacle Hills Country Club with bankers, poultry magnates and real estate developers. The lunch was held to inform the businesses that have contributed a combined $200,000 to the Conservancy about the organization’s efforts in Northwest Arkansas and the rest of the state.

Scott Simon, state director for the Conservancy, said the organization acquired more than 8,000 acres statewide in the last 12 months, with about 400 of those acres in the northwest corner. Last year, the Conservancy acquired about 3,500 acres statewide, he said. Two tracts of land, one cave and one easement to a cave entrance, were within the land from the northwest, he said.

The Conservancy’s statewide base is in Little Rock, but a Fayetteville office was opened last year. There are five employees in Fayetteville, with openings for two more, Simon said, including an associate director of philanthropy. Simon hopes the Fayetteville office will employ 12 within the next few years.

The Nature Conservancy, which has a $3.3 million annual budget, has had an Arkansas field office for 20 years and, through collaborative efforts, has helped conserve about 270,000 acres of the “Natural State.”