The Landscape Conservation Bulletin |
|
A bi-monthly service of the Network for
Landscape Conservation
|
|
|
Dear Network Friends,
Two weeks ago, for the first time in four years, we convened the Network’s Coordinating Committee in person, in Albuquerque. It was an especially powerful experience as we had the privilege of sharing time with a large group of current Catalyst Fund grantees—and it reaffirmed for me how I think of the Network. The Network is a community more so than an organization—a community connected by the shared work of collaborative landscape conservation and stewardship, and by a shared desire to see that work done more effectively, better.
We often talk of the Network as a community of practice. One of the threads that emerged in Albuquerque was that we are often called to this work out of a deep care for people and places—and the power that comes from showing up wholeheartedly to bring people together to envision a better future for the places we care for. This is challenging work no doubt, but there is also an element of joy to it—a joy of forging relationships and community around literal common ground. And more than ever we need to embrace that joy. And so, lifted by the energy of shared conversations in Albuquerque, I am now thinking of the Network is a community of practice AND joy.
As we come out of the holiday weekend, we invite you to enjoy this month’s Bulletin and hope that you find nuggets of value here—but most of all we hope you find opportunities to get out to your cherished places with people you cherish and find joy in your landscape in the coming summer months!
|
|
Landscape Partnerships For Climate Outcomes |
2024 Sentinel Landscapes Designation Cycle |
Additional Landscape Conservation News |
Landscape Conservation Job Board |
Webinars & Additional Resources |
|
Jonathan Peterson
Program Manager, Network for Landscape Conservation
|
|
Cover photo: A vibrant spring in California's Livemore Valley. Photo by Spencer DeMera on Unsplash.
|
|
Featured News
New working paper explores how landscape conservation partnerships are working to address climate change
|
|
The climate and biodiversity crises are interwoven, and yet too often efforts to address these systems-level challenges have been treated separately. Landscape-level conservation, restoration, and stewardship efforts are a critical means for integrating across these crises—with the landscape scale offering the potential to create outcomes that sustain biodiversity, mitigate climate change, and help human and natural communities adapt to shifting climate paradigms. To better understand the role that landscape conservation partnerships can play in this context, the Network for Landscape Conservation partnered with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the University of Montana to produce a working paper that distills insights and observations from landscape partnerships working to realize climate outcomes. The working paper—How Landscape Conservation Partnerships Are Working to Address Climate Change—builds upon data from the Network's recent survey of landscape conservation partnership as well as more than 40 interviews with landscape practitioners. From this body of experience and knowledge emerge themes around effective practices that enable such partnerships to realize climate successes, as well as recommendations for accelerating and broadening the benefits of landscape conservation, restoration, and stewardship in meeting climate goals.
|
|
Featured News
New designation cycle launched for Sentinel Landscapes
|
|
The Sentinel Landscapes Partnership has opened the the 2024 Sentinel Landscape Designation Cycle, with an initial expression of interest submission required by July 27, 2023 and new designations being announced in April 2024; more information is available here. A live help session webinar will be held on June 21, 2023 to answer questions about the designation cycle.
|
|
|
The Sentinel Landscapes program has been in existence for a decade now, having been founded in 2013 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, and Department of the Interior. It continues to grow as a pioneering community working to strengthen military readiness, conserve natural resources, bolster agricultural and forestry economies, and increase climate change resilience. The Sentinel Landscapes Partnership is a coalition of federal agencies, state and local governments, and non-governmental organizations that work with willing landowners and land managers to advance sustainable land use practices around military installations and ranges. The partnership achieves its mission by empowering landowners and managers, supporting climate resilience efforts, increasing public access to recreation, promoting compatible land use near military installations, and fostering collaboration among various stakeholders. Sentinel landscape designation leads to a myriad of benefits for local partners, including support to hire a local sentinel landscape coordinator and priority consideration for certain federal funding opportunities. This 2024 designation cycle builds upon the success of the 11 existing Sentinel Landscapes, and reflects a decade of valuable lessons learned around fostering innovative connections amongst partners in conservation, working lands, climate resilience, and national defense.
|
|
Additional Landscape Conservation News |
|
Article from Conservation Corridor highlights the importance of understanding climate refugia if the 30x30 goal is to be effective in sustaining biodiversity—and a High Country News piece visually explores what such refugia might look like under varying climate futures.
Nine key summary takeaways are offered from the New Horizons in Conservation conference held at the Yale School of the Environment in early May.
Blogpost from SECAS reflects on their experiences with the Southeast Conservation Blueprint, and highlights how a tech industry approach—the “Lean Startup” framework—can be especially helpful in applying to conservation planning efforts.
The Revelator reports on insights emerging from a “Restoring Riverscapes” workshop held in March, where participants were invited to consider how process-based restoration approaches can bring back ecological function not just in river channels but throughout river floodplains and valleys.
The Bonneville Environmental Foundation offers a guide for landscape partnerships to develop governance documents to articulate processes for collective decision-making and coordinating action.
Article in the National Park Traveler highlights new guidance from the White House Council on Environmental Quality that calls for federal agencies to develop policies to conserve, enhance, protect, and restore wildlife corridors and ecological connectivity.
At the end of March the Department of the Interior issued a proposed Public Lands Rule that provides tools for the Bureau of Land Management to improve the resilience of public lands in the face of a changing climate; conserve important wildlife habitat and intact landscapes; plan for development; and better recognize unique cultural and natural resources on public lands.
Article from the Places Journal explores how the stewardship of water according to the ahupuaʻa system remains central to the ways in which Native Hawaiians and their allies seek to empower themselves and build community—and how an integrative “watershed urbanism” could inform efforts elsewhere to rebuild connections between people and nature.
A new report—Wildlands in New England: Past, Present, and Future—offers the first-ever, comprehensive study of the region's forever wild forests, making a case that the mounting pressures caused by climate change and development means it is imperative that we accelerate wildlands protection across the region.
This spring 1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People and partners are hosting a three-part dialogue on accelerating finance for thriving landscapes; a post offers reflections on the first dialogue, and the concluding dialogue is scheduled for early June.
New web platforms aim to enable peer-to-peer knowledge sharing: The Conservation and Adaptation Resources Toolbox—a partnership between the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the US Forest Service—connects practitioners across North America and offers a case studies database; Elsewhere, Tech Matters has launched Terraso to offer tools to local leaders across the globe for advancing multi-stakeholder partnerships, building a shared understanding of the challenges and features of a landscape, planning for action, and measuring their impact.
BBC article highlights new research that offers a drastic alert on the global erosion of biodiversity, with the most comprehensive analysis to date suggesting that nearly half of all species are experiencing population declines.
The US Geological Survey is launching the first-ever continental assessment of biodiversity and climate change—with comments initially welcomed on the draft prospectus and nominations for participation on the authoring team currently being accepted.
Post from the Environmental Dispute Resolution Program in the Wallace Stegner Center at the University of Utah underscores the distinction between positions and interests in navigating conflict across landscapes.
In late March FEMA released a new report that offers five key management strategies for advancing nature-based solutions to building community resilience.
Article from the Living Landscape Observer highlights the role of culture as a building block of conserving rural landscapes.
Post captures reflections and insights from a discussion hosted by the Yale School of Environment on incorporate environmental justice into land conservation efforts.
With discussions underway for the 2023 reauthorization of the Farm Bill, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Center for American Progress highlight the significant opportunity that exists for conservation and climate impact to emerge.
National Geographic article highlights how—60 years after being conscribed to a straight canal—much of Florida’s Kissimmee River has been reconnected with its floodplain in one of the largest river restoration efforts ever completed, with waterfowl, raptors, fish, and mammals now returning.
Article in Reasons to be Cheerful highlights the multitude of benefits that the in-development East Coast Greenway is offering to cities and urban residents up and down the eastern seaboard.
In the face of a decades-long draught and intensifying climate change, the New York Times reports on the preliminary agreement on future water management of the Colorado River; elsewhere an article from Colorado Public Radio highlights how Tribes—excluded from the original Compact in 1922—have been working to secure water rights and regain decision-making power to help decide the future of the River.
|
|
Upcoming Conferences & Events
* * *
Boulder, Colorado (and hybrid with virtual option)
New Haven, Connecticut
Virtual
Boulder, Colorado
Austin, Texas
North Bend, Oregon
St. Louis, Missouri
Durham, North Carolina
Cawston, British Columbia
Portland, Oregon
Denver, Colorado
November 9, 2023 — RCP Network Gathering
Amherst, Massachusetts
Tucson, Arizona
|
|
Landscape Conservation Job Board
* * *
Executive Director, Connecticut River Conservancy
Vice President for Tribal Lands and Waters Stewardship, Ecotrust
Network Coordinator, Columbia Gorge Stewardship Network
Coordinator, San Francisco Bay Joint Venture
Foundation and Grants Manager, Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Strategic Partnerships Manager, League to Save Lake Tahoe
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.
|
|
Webinars & Additional Resources
The Open Space Institute and the Land Trust Alliance are currently accepting proposals for the 2023 round of the Land and Climate Grant Program, with proposals due on Thursday, June 8, 2023.
Common Counsel Foundation and Native Americans in Philanthropy are currently accepting proposals for the 2023 round of Native Voices Rising, with proposals due on Friday, July 7, 2023.
May 31, 2023
June 6, 2023
An International Land Conservation Network webinar on Indigenous wisdom
June 21, 2023
A Salazar Center for North American Conservation webinar on case studies in collaborative land conservation: Lessons on tackling the climate change and biodiversity loss crises
June 29, 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.
|
|
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.
|
|
The Network for Landscape Conservation is a fiscally sponsored project of the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, P.O. Box 1587, Bozeman, MT 59771
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
