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Climate Change Stories

Scaling Natural Climate Solutions With Integrity and Impact

How TNC leveraged a $100 million gift to support local communities in climate action and conduct foundational research for natural climate solutions.

Aerial of cedar and spruce forest divided by rivers and inlets.
Tongass National Forest In the Tongass National Forest old-growth forests of yellow cedar and red cedar, Sitka spruce and Western hemlock stand like wild cathedrals. © Erika Nortemann/TNC

In late 2020, The Nature Conservancy announced a transformative $100 million gift from the Bezos Earth Fund to support our work on natural climate solutions around the world.

Combined with cutting fossil fuels and accelerating renewable energy, natural climate solutions offer immediate and cost-effective ways to tackle the climate crisis—while also addressing biodiversity loss and supporting human health and livelihoods.

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Over a three-year grant period, the funds have helped us expand our work developing and implementing nature-based solutions to climate change around the world. We’ve done this by partnering with local communities, developing on-the-ground projects and conducting foundational research.

The Bezos Earth Fund has supported these initiatives:

Catalyzing Natural Climate Solutions

In 2017, science led by TNC showed that nature is a critical part of the solution to climate change. With this grant funding, our team has sought to answer fundamental questions:

  • Which actions are most effective and where?
  • How much will it cost to activate these actions?
  • What are their tradeoffs and potential benefits?
  • How do we rapidly measure and scale up successful models? 

To help answer these questions and advance natural climate solutions more effectively, TNC developed a suite of tools:

Quote: Peter Ellis

The world is clamoring for NCS action, this gift will help us to rapidly replicate these tools to fully realize nature’s power in our collective battle for a livable future.

NCS science lead and forest ecologist

Protecting Living Carbon Reserves in the Emerald Edge

Stretching across Southeast Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon, the Emerald Edge, has been home to Indigenous First Nations, Alaska Natives and coastal Tribes for millennia. Here, TNC and Nature United (our Canadian affiliate) are part of a movement toward Indigenous- and community-led conservation of the world’s largest temperate coastal rainforest.

Quote: Eric Delvin

I appreciate how we have remained committed to our core values of supporting Indigenous rights and authority, listening respectfully and following community leadership—while experimenting our way forward to understand the intersection of natural climate solutions and community authority.

Emerald Edge Director

A Promising Solution in Northwest India’s Soil

Farmers walk along crops while the sky is blanketed by opaque smog.
In northern India, TNC is helping fight the choking smog that threatens peoples’ lives by giving farmers an alternative to burning their fields when they prepare to plant new crops. © Natalya Skiba/TNC

Northwest India is the most productive rice and wheat growing area in South Asia. Traditional practice for farmers is to burn rice crop residue before preparing fields for wheat planting; but the practice emits dangerous greenhouse gasses, reduces soil fertility and hydrology, and contributes to nearly half of Delhi’s air pollution on some days, endangering the health of almost 70 million people.

TNC is working with partners including the Borlaug Institute for South Asia to eliminate the practice of burning crop residue in northwest India, and there is a promising solution that can cut that number in half by 2023.

The Ganges River
The Ganges River © Ian Shive

India: Home to 8% of Earth's Biodiversity

Together with partners, we are working to support India’s vision of “developing without destruction” by finding science-led solutions at the interface of conservation and development. 

Our Priority Work in India

The Happy Seeder is a machine that mulches farm residue and sows seeds for the next crop directly into the mulched soil, providing a no-burn, no-till approach that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by almost 80% and saves 500,000 liters of water per hectare. 

It is also up to 20% more profitable for farmers than burning, but it is not yet widely recognized as an option and TNC is working to change that.

A major barrier is influencing communities to move away from the long-standing traditional practice of sowing on a clean seed bed; the Happy Seeder is a new technology and training on its proper use is urgently needed to ensure farmers experience positive results quickly and, therefore, and adopt it. Our work is focused on demonstrating this technology and promoting it to farmers.

Wind farm turbines
West Virginia wind farm Wind farm turbines situated on a ridge top in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia. © Kent Mason