The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global conservation organization dedicated to conserving the lands and waters on which all life depends.  TNC works in all 50 states in the U.S. and in 79 countries and territories around the world.

Guided by science, TNC creates innovative, on-the-ground solutions to the world’s toughest environmental challenges so that nature and people can thrive together. They work with partners to address climate change, conserve land and water, provide food and water sustainably, and help make cities more sustainable.

In Wisconsin, TNC has worked with supporters, landowners, communities, public agencies, and businesses since 1960 to conserve more than 242,000 acres at some of Wisconsin most beloved and ecologically significant landscapes. These special places include the Baraboo Hills, the Door Peninsula, the Mukwonago River watershed near Milwaukee, grasslands in the Military Ridge Prairie Heritage Area in the southwest, and the forests and wild lakes in the Northwoods.  These Wisconsin TNC preserves are open to the public for hiking, hunting, canoeing, cross-country skiing, and other types of recreation.

One of TNC’s most visited sites is Spring Green Preserve. Known as the Wisconsin Desert, the preserve is a place where forest meets bluff, and bluff levels off into plains and dunes. The property’s topography provides diverse habitat types and ecosystems that foster exceptionally high biodiversity. Spring Green Preserve harbors some of Wisconsin’s rarest plant communities, including sand prairie, dry bluff prairie, and black oak barrens. Due to changes in land use, all these communities, which once covered thousands of acres across the state, have almost completely disappeared.

Since the early seventies, The Nature Conservancy has worked with partners to protect and restore this region’s unique biodiversity. Since those early days, the preserve has grown to 1,362 acres and gives visitors a taste of the American West—a land of cacti and lizards, sand dunes and dry grasses—without going far from home.

Our restoration efforts include restoring former cropland to native prairie to provide nesting habitat for uncommon bird species such as both Eastern and Western meadowlarks, lark sparrows, and bobolinks. And our land management work is helping protect the preserve’s oak woodlands, which attract nearly all the warblers that migrate through Wisconsin. Spring Green Preserve is located only a mile north of the Wisconsin River within a major migratory flyway, and more than 180 different species of birds have been observed at the preserve. While more subtle and harder to see, the property also holds exceptional diversity of invertebrates, from butterflies to tiger beetles.

Hurtado Zimmerman SC employees have assisted TNC with controlled burn activities at the Spring Green Preserve and our firm has committed funds toward its continuing preservation.  We invite you to take action for nature today by making a gift in support of Spring Green Preserve and other special places across Wisconsin The Nature Conservancy is working to protect. Your support will help create a conservation legacy here in Wisconsin and around the world. Donate To Our Chapter