President's Message for 2011

2010 was another challenging year for the non-profit community.  The Harder Foundation endowment was restored to $31,016,000 and grants increased to $1,022,000.  Yet nationally, recovery from the global economic crisis of 2008 has been slow and difficult.  The resulting recession has been the worst since before World War II with the unemployment rate hovering just above 9%, states and municipalities facing serious budget shortfalls for a second year, and the housing sector burdened by very tight lending and widespread foreclosures.  As of March 2011, strong economic growth continues to look tenuous.

At the same time, the optimism associated with the election in 2008 has faded in the face of sustaining two foreign wars and serious challenges to the administration’s reform agenda.  The congressional elections of 2010 reflected a frustrated and deeply divided public over how the country should solve our complicated economic, environmental and social problems. 

In this economic and political context, we recognize the significant challenges that our grantees have tackled while advancing important conservation work.  We continue to be heartened by their hard-won successes:

• A coalition of organizations made substantial progress in establishing a system of marine reserves and protected areas along Oregon’s near-shore, promising long-term environmental and economic benefits as fisheries and the habitats they depend on have a chance at recovery.
• Conservation, recreation and sportsmen’s organizations have succeeded in preventing oil and gas development in 44,000 acres of critical wildlife habitat in the Bridger Teton National Forest in Wyoming, adding more protected habitat to 1.2 million acres in the Wyoming Range where future oil and gas leases have already been prohibited.
• Throughout the West, grantees have advocated for federal funding to decommission old Forest Service roads and to restore watersheds across thousands of acres. The resulting Federal Legacy Roads and Trails Initiative has brought $180 million to national forests to decommission roads. In Montana, the program has created or maintained over 200 jobs over the last few years.

These successes protect and restore important habitats that are increasingly threatened from climate change; they present examples of conservation approaches that can be deployed locally to manage ecosystems to adapt to climate change impacts. 

The Harder Foundation restructured its grantmaking portfolio in 2010 to prioritize support for policies and actions to promote ecosystem adaptation to climate change.  This focus reflects our growing sense of urgency about how climate change is affecting the environment in our grant making regions of Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and the Northern Rockies.  Climate change is already evident at the ecosystem level in many parts of this geography.  Whitebark pine forests, a critical food source for Yellowstone’s endangered grizzly bears, are being decimated throughout their Rocky Mountain range by a climate-induced disease, blister rust, and by mountain pine beetles.  Winter snowpack has been reduced by as much as 20% in the Cascades and receding glaciers on Mt. Rainier are filling rivers with glacial debris. Changes in precipitation and timing of runoff, coupled with higher temperatures, are altering habitat conditions in rivers and streams throughout these regions.  We are concerned that continued, rapid changes like these will reduce the chances of species survival.

Strategies that protect healthy ecosystems can also produce healthy local economies.   One of our key priorities going forward will be to help the conservation community link the benefits of functioning ecosystems with economic prosperity and job creation.  At a time when state and federal budget cuts threaten to reduce natural resource agencies, we believe that a strong economic case for natural resource protection can be made.

Our priorities for 2011 are described in this website’s Grantmaking Program section. Fundamentally it aims to maximize biodiversity and healthy ecological functions on public lands and waters, and to promote the long-term health and vitality of local communities.  It elevates climate adaptation as a goal, as it maintains our long-standing commitment to durable conservation.  2010 was a year to explore and prioritize approaches to the goal; we will evaluate the first two years of this new grantmaking strategy at the end of 2011. 

The financial and political challenges currently faced by regional and local non-profit conservation groups continues to be daunting, especially at a time when regional effects of climate change force difficult choices on local communities.  Once again, we want to express our deep appreciation for our grantees’ creativity and resolve in these very difficult circumstances. We also acknowledge the critical role played by cooperating foundations in supporting our grantees and their work.