The New York City-based Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has announced grants totaling $6 million to support habitat conservation efforts in four critically important ecosystems.

The foundation awarded grants of $1.5 million to the Nature Conservancy of Montana, for conservation efforts in key watersheds of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem (Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming), and the Open Space Conservancy, a supporting organization of the Open Space Institute, for preservation activities in the Northern Forest (New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine). It also announced grants of $750,000 each to the Nature Conservancy of Florida and the Conservation Fund for projects in the East Gulf Coastal Plain of Florida and Georgia. And it awarded $1.5 million to the Conservation Fund for projects in the Southern Appalachian region (Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee). The grants bring the foundation's total investment in habitat protection in these regions to more than $40 million since 2000.

"The forests, grasslands, wetlands, rivers, streams, and meadows in these areas are home to many imperiled plants and animals that represent America's extraordinary wildlife heritage," said Dr. Mark Shaffer, DCCF program director for the environment. "They are also places where people are enjoying the outdoors. In each case, the environmental projects we help fund focus on the most critical habitat. It's no secret that the greatest threat to wildlife today is the loss of habitat."