The Landscape Conservation Bulletin |
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A bi-monthly service of the Network for
Landscape Conservation
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Dear Network Friends,
This year has been tough when it comes to climate change and biodiversity. Every day brings news of climate trauma–from million-acre forest fires in Canada, to coastal waters off Florida hitting record highs. And yet, all this comes on the heels of significant strides made for nature: the ambitious commitments of the Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, major increases in federal investments in Canada and the US for climate and biodiversity work, and a heightened focus on addressing long-standing equity concerns.
Climate and biodiversity are inseparable–something many of us have known for a long time. As some of the original proponents of nature-based solutions, landscape partnerships are poised to be a keystone factor in ensuring both climate and biodiversity solutions are planned and implemented at scale and, ultimately, driving us toward a more durable future. NLC and the Lincoln Land Institute recently highlighted this critical role in a working paper and together, NLC and the Salazar Center have been further exploring it in a series of webinars (there’s still time to register for the third one!).
To deepen this dialogue, the Salazar Center’s fifth annual International Symposium on Conservation Impact will focus on nature-based solutions and how they can catapult our communities toward durable, equitable, high-impact outcomes for climate, biodiversity, and human well-being. This will be a great opportunity to explore together how our landscape work contributes to this critical work –we hope to see you there! Early bird registration has been extended through August 14, so be sure to register today.
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Destination Stewardship in Tahoe |
Indigenous-led Conservation & Stewardship |
Additional Landscape Conservation News |
Landscape Conservation Job Board |
Webinars & Additional Resources |
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Jennifer Kovecses
Assistant Director of Programs, Salazar Center for North American Conservation, and member of NLC's Coordinating Committee
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Cover photo: Ogunquit, Maine, awaiting the fireworks on the 4th. Photo by Justin Bisson Beck on Unsplash.
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Featured News
Tackling the Amenity Trap: Tahoe innovates with Destination Stewardship
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Last month, an unprecedented group of partners from the destination management, land management, and non-profit sectors announced a new Destination Stewardship Plan for Lake Tahoe. The culmination of an extensive stakeholder engagement and community visioning process that began in 2022 after it became clear that the pandemic was putting immense pressure on natural and community resources, the plan establishes an innovative destination stewardship council for the greater Tahoe region. Together, this council will work towards shared goals of better managing outdoor recreation and tourism and ensuring the sustainability and preservation of an iconic natural treasure and its local community.
Pair the insights and innovations of this new initiative from Lake Tahoe with a report from Headwaters Economics released earlier this year that explores the “amenity trap”—the paradox that exists in places that are great places to live because of outstanding natural attractions but are also threatened by the prospects of being “loved to death.” The Headwaters report aims to help community leaders tackle challenges facing their communities, and spotlights efforts in communities across the country that are having success navigating a growing outdoor recreation economy while protecting needs of residents and the natural amenities upon which they depend. This is an exciting moment as we are seeing increasing evidence that individuals are reinvesting in their connections to mountains, lakes, and coastlines, to the forests, grasslands, and marshes; and as the Tahoe example and the Headwaters report makes clear, this is the moment to build robust and collaborative processes for us to envision as communities how we wish to shape our relationship to the places we live into the future.
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Featured News
Indigenous leadership in conservation and stewardship is vital to preserving biodiversity, addressing climate change, and advancing Indigenous Rights
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Over the last several years, we have experienced an exciting moment where Indigenous-led conservation and stewardship has gained greater public recognition. Indeed, it is increasingly understood that Indigenous communities have the right to determine what happens on their homelands—and that their active participation in stewardship of lands and water is critical to preserving biodiversity and fighting climate change. In Canada, much emphasis has focused on Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs), and over the last five years nearly 60 proposals have emerged for creating new IPCAs. However, to date only 3 IPCAs are formally recognized—which suggests some of the complexity that is involved in understanding how these are defined and what they entail. Learn more and catch up to speed on Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas in Canada with this explainer from The Narwhal.
Across the border, the focus has been more on Tribal co-management of U.S. public lands—perhaps the highest profile example being the co-management agreement at the Bears Ears National Momentum from a year ago. As an article in Undark Magazine highlights, co-management is building momentum in a variety of settings; the article shares how Native Alaskans are working to incorporate their traditional knowledges and voices into management, while also noting that co-management agreements don't always do enough to lift up Indigenous voices—and that barriers to meaningful co-management are still prevalent. Picking up on the question of building meaningful partnership and collaboration across cultures, Indigenous practitioners at Archaeology Southwest have offered a model for Tribal collaboration that is structured around 4 R’s: relationship, responsibility, reciprocity, and redistribution. And finally, in an example of how Tribal collaboration can play out on the ground, an article from the Native News journal out of the University of Montana highlights an innovative co-management conservation program—the creation of a Guardianship position focused on Ninnahstako, also known as Chief Mountain, one of the Blackfeet’s most sacred places that sits on the border of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Glacier National Park in Montana.
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Additional Landscape Conservation News |
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New York Times article highlights the growing return of Bison to Native American lands, with returning Bison restoring the highly complex grasslands ecosystems and reinvigorating Indigenous customs.
In California, a collaborative effort pairing LIDAR data and high-resolution aerial imagery with boots-on-the-ground botanists has produced a fine scale vegetation map that represents some of the highest quality vegetation mapping in the country—and now land managers are using this sophisticated resource to better understand the land they steward.
The Center for Large Landscape Conservation and the Western Transportation Institute have released a new study that analyzes the western contiguous United States to identify important highway locations for wildlife crossings.
Last month the Institute for Conservation Leadership released a new resource, “Planning for Your Collaboration, outlining four key “must haves” for collaboratives to effectively move through a planning effort.
A post from the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network reflects on a series of workshops on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice held in late 2022, sharing learnings and insights.
From litigation to collaboration on the San Joaquin River: A post from the Public Policy Institute of California reflects on the history of efforts to rebalance environmental and community connections to the river against the demands for irrigation—highlighting the importance of collaborative, multi-benefit restoration efforts.
Post from Conservation Corridor highlights a new analysis that suggests protected areas are unlikely to serve as “stepping stones” in helping species move to new locations under changing climatic conditions—suggesting the importance of cross-jurisdictional efforts to build connectivity between protected areas.
Article from the Center for Western Priorities explores what the new Farm Bill—up for renewal this year—might mean for conservation on private and public lands.
NOAA has announced a new Climate Resilience Regional Challenge—with $575 million available—to support collaborative approaches to achieving resilience in coastal regions.
Report from the Center for American Progress provides an overview on the Administration’s proposed Public Lands Rule for the Bureau of Land Management.
Storymap highlights 21 “Restoration Landscapes” where the Bureau of Land Management will focus investments in ecosystem restoration and the economic resilience of communities that depend on these lands to support their livelihoods and traditions.
Last month the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced an historic expansion of the Working Lands for Wildlife Initiative, with an additional $500 million over the next five years to promote wildlife conservation on working lands.
Thinking of cities as nature is key to fighting climate change: Bloomberg article highlights how seeing cities as living, dynamic systems that evolve with people alongside nature helps us better design solutions to tackle the climate crisis.
Article from Sightline Insight highlights Bend, Oregon, in a case study exploring how land use law can help create wildfire-adapted communities.
The human psychology of conservation: article from The Revelator highlights that facts alone don’t convince people to conserve a landscape, and offers insights on how better to reach people in meaningful ways.
This month the Virginia Security Corridor was designated as the newest Sentinel Landscape, creating a unique opportunity for regional collaboration to conserve important lands and waters and advance sustainable land use practices around military installations as it connects two previously designated Sentinel Landscapes.
The Appalachian Mountain Club and a group of NGO partners have released the Highlands Regional Study Update Report, compiling recommendations from the NGO community to the US Fish and Wildlife Service for implementing the programmatic changes included in the Highlands Conservation Reauthorization Act that was passed late last year.
Writing in Mountain Journal, a therapist reflects on loneliness and the crisis of human disconnection that we are experiencing, and offers insights how connection to landscape can remind us of our interpersonal dependences and lead us to strengthening such human connections around envisioning the future of our places.
Salmon, sandhill cranes, monarch butterflies: Writing in Emergence Magazine, author David Abrams reflects on migrations and how these amazing acts draw into focus the dynamic relationship between animals and an animate earth.
Article in Conservation Corridor highlights research led by The Nature Conservancy to map a conservation network for the conterminous United States to protect biodiversity even as climate changes.
Article in Anthropocene Magazine highlights research into current trends in agriculture which suggest that by century’s end, farm numbers will halve and farm size will double—with reflections on what this means for biodiversity.
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Upcoming Conferences & Events
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Olympic National Park, Washington
Portland, Oregon
Centralia, Washington
Boise, Idaho
Missoula, Montana
Denver, Colorado
Pensacola Beach, Florida
Amherst, Massachusetts
Tucson, Arizona
Estes Park, Colorado
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Landscape Conservation Job Board
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Coalition Facilitator, America the Beautiful for All Coalition
Collaborative Capacity Program Manager, National Forest Foundation
Collaborative Capacity Financial Assistance Manager, National Forest Foundation
Program Director, Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center
Stewardship and Community Engagement Specialist, Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance
Associate Director, The Conservation Finance Network
Wilderness Dayen- Alpine Lake Collaborative Project Manager, Society for Wilderness Stewardship
Maine Land Protection Project Manager, Trust for Public Land
Executive Director, Connecticut River Conservancy
This section of the Landscape Conservation Bulletin is intended to be a space to share job postings that will be specifically relevant to landscape conservation practitioners. We welcome submissions: if your organization would like to widely distribute a posting please be in touch.
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Webinars & Additional Resources
Southwest Decision Resources is supporting three different facilitation training courses in Arizona in late September and October. More information here.
Converge is offering a fall course for its Network Leadership Series, to run late September through the middle of November. More information here.
A network of academic institutions is conducting a survey of informal, self-organized fire management collaboratives in the contiguous United States. Learn more about the project here.
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August 1, 2023
A REPI webinar series webinar
August 9, 2023
A REPI webinar series webinar
October 10, 2023
A webinar by the Western Collaborative Conservation Network
October 26, 2023
Following cancellation of the 2020 Conservation Finance Boot Camp, the Conservation Finance Network compiled a 4-part video short course, which is available via the above link.
A weekly podcast that explores the challenges presented by adapting to climate change and the approaches the field's best minds believe are already working.
A podcast that explores the intersection of social and environmental advocacy, and seeks to uncover the actions people are taking around the world to showcase the symbiotic, yet sometimes tumultuous, relationship between people and nature.
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The Network for Landscape Conservation is the community of practice for practitioners advancing collaborative, cross-boundary conservation as an essential approach to protect nature, culture, and community in the 21st Century.
Contact Ernest Cook, Network Director, for more information.
Contributions of news, upcoming events, resources, and job postings for future Bulletins are welcomed. We also welcome inquires for potential future "Perspectives: Landscapes Conservation in Action" stories; please be in touch if you are interested in sharing stories and insights from your work.
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The Network for Landscape Conservation is a fiscally sponsored project of the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, P.O. Box 1587, Bozeman, MT 59771
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