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 is an exceptional time, as funding and policy are aligning to rapidly advance inclusive, community-driven landscape conservation.
Against this exciting backdrop, the Network for Landscape is launching a new survey of landscape conservation initiatives across North America, to build off its initial national survey from 2017. It’s clear that the collaborative landscape conservation approach will be an essential driver of success as we work to conserve and steward the lands and waters upon which we depend. This survey will help us better understand our collective work—and to identify challenges and needs where strategic investments could significantly accelerate our work. We hope you’ll respond to the survey!
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Inclusive, Just Conservation |
The Infrastructure Act and Build Back Better |
NLC Landscape Conservation Initiative Survey |
Additional Landscape Conservation News |
Landscape Conservation Job Board |
Webinars & Additional Resources |
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Brenda Barrett
Editor, Living Landscape Observer
Member of the Network for Landscape Conservation’s Coordinating Committee
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In a recent article in the Living Landscape Observer, Brenda reflected on the origins of the landscape conservation movement—read it here.
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Cover photo: Late fall sunrise paddle in the Adirondacks. Credit: Chris Turgeon on Unsplash. |
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Featured News
Building a more inclusive, just landscape conservation movement
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The North American conservation movement has been historically white and elitist—and has mythologized an understanding that lands worthy of conserving are those that are “pristine” and “wild,” places to visit for recreation and enjoyment but not lived in. There is growing awareness however that the inspiring successes of the conservation movement have not always been without burden. As the Weaving the Strands Together report that the Network and the Salazar Center published in early 2021 notes, “The politics of race, power, and wealth have also been used to exclude Indigenous, Black, and Brown Americans from equally shaping and benefitting from myriad environmental values.” This was brought home powerfully in a series of articles from recent weeks: An article in The Guardian highlights how heirs’ property and unstable property rights are intersecting with climate change to accelerate Black land loss in the southern United States. Elsewhere, a ProPublica article explores the history of tension in Prembroke Township, Illinois, between the predominantly Black community and private conservation organizations that have sought to conserve rare, ecologically significant savanna habitat (Pembroke Township was one of four case studies explored in the Weaving the Strands report).
Just this month, the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership released a new report—focused on Canada but widely applicable—that provides guidance for private land conservation organizations seeking to adapt their practices and build respectful and appropriate relationships with Indigenous Nations. And in New England earlier this month, the Regional Conservation Partnerships Network produced this Land Justice storymap for its annual gathering. The storymap guided participants through a program that focused on how we must understand and address the legacy of injustice that has disproportionately affected people of color and Indigenous people in the United States if we wish to use land conservation to build a healthier, more livable planet for all.
The challenge before us perhaps is to think of landscape conservation as not simply a shift in scale but truly a shift in approach. Landscape conservation is a framework for building an inclusive and collective conversation about our relationship to the landscapes in which we live, and how we collectively wish to shape a just relationship with the landscape into the future. This shift recognizes that conservation at its most fundamental level is a human decision—and we all must wrestle with questions of who gets to make those decisions.
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Featured News
Infrastructure and Build Back Better: Legislative actions bring an influx of funding for conservation and natural climate solutions
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Throughout the country, people and communities are interwoven within and dependent upon the landscapes in which they are located—landscapes as infrastructure. Recent federal legislation has potential to significantly accelerate efforts to ensure that our landscapes remain connected and functioning, and serve as key assets in our efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The two paired legislative "infrastructure" actions—the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was signed into law earlier this month and the still-pending Build Back Better reconciliation bill—represent a historic investment in workings lands such as forests and farms, as well as habitat connectivity and biodiversity conservation. The Administration is viewing the reconciliation bill as the “largest effort to combat the climate crisis in American history,” and natural climate solutions are understood to be a critical component of the effort. Summarizing the (potential) impacts for landscape conservation of these two pieces of infrastructure legislation, the Highstead Foundation has produced a succinct explainer piece—and provided an update following the passage of the Infrastructure Act. Elsewhere, an article in Vox further details the unprecedented funding that could potentially emerge from the Build Back Better reconciliation act, should it be passed. A separate Vox article highlights the $350 million in wildlife road crossings funding that is included in the Infrastructure Act—this article pairs well with a brief summary from the Center for Large Landscape Conservation on how the Act will “help safeguard biodiversity while stimulating the U.S. economy, mitigating climate impacts, and reducing highway fatalities.”
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Featured News
New community-grounded, holistic visioning document for Adirondack Park released
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Adirondack Park in update New York is the largest park in the contiguous United States and is more than 100 years old. The Park was created in 1892 as the “protected areas” paradigm of conservation was emerging, but it is in many ways a progenitor and remarkable early example of the landscape conservation approach that weaves together natural and human communities: the Park is roughly a 50/50 matrix of public and private lands currently, and is pivotal for regional habitat connectivity, climate resilience, and watershed protection, not to mention outdoor recreation and vibrant local communities. Earlier this month, the Adirondack Council released Adirondack VISION 2050, a new long-range vision with recommendations for how to preserve the Park’s ecology, sustain its small villages and hamlets, and improve Park management by the middle of this century. The report recognizes the natural and human systems of the Park are at risk from climate change, challenging economic forces, and inadequate, under-funded management, and—drawing on the input of community leaders, government officials, scientists, advocates, and other stakeholders with deep roots in the North Country—provides a long-term strategic framing to guide an integrated approach to addressing these challenges. If Adirondack Park is an early and long-running experiment in implementing landscape conservation, this vision serves as a barometer of some of the challenges facing efforts to work at a landscape scale as well as an example of the power of a community-grounded and holistic vision for securing the future of a landscape.
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Landscape conservation practitioners: Take the survey! |
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The Network for Landscape Conservation has launched a new national survey of landscape conservation initiatives. |
In late 2016 and early 2017 the Network conducted an initial national survey (see summary report); now five years on, we are again surveying the field to:
- Track the growth and development of the landscape conservation movement, and
- Identify challenges and needs facing the landscape conservation community.
This survey is intended for people organizing, coordinating, or participating in a landscape conservation initiative in North America, and should take 20-30 minutes to complete. Individual responses to this survey will remain confidential, as data will be aggregated regionally and nationally for analysis.
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We consider landscape conservation initiatives to be efforts that work across jurisdictional boundaries; include multiple stakeholders; and advance the conservation, stewardship, restoration, and/or management of lands and waters—and the services and well-being that these provide. Such initiatives are defined by approach rather than size: initiatives can be found in urban areas with a small geographic extent and can be found in rural areas with an expansive geographic extent.
We welcome responses from initiatives that are working to achieve a vision for a specific, defined landscape, as well as initiatives that are working to build critical “infrastructure” to accelerate landscape conservation [including for instance, initiatives that are synthesizing science and data across scales or that are providing technical assistance and/or building capacity for landscape conservation initiatives across a variety of landscapes).
We hope you will take a few moments to complete the survey and share details about your landscape conservation initiative. To thank you for sharing your time with us, all respondents that complete the survey by January 1st will have the opportunity to enter a random drawing for one of two $100 REI gift cards.
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Additional Landscape Conservation News |
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New report highlights how America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative formed and the elements that have made it successful over the last decade—as a model for the U.S. Forest Service concept of Shared Stewardship.
Elsewhere, a new report from Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition explores three other models for putting Shared Stewardship into practice, drawing on examples in California, Oregon, and Minnesota.
The U.S. Department of the Interior releases a climate adaptation and resilience plan to address climate change risks, impacts and vulnerabilities.
Article in Grist spotlights the California Landscape Stewardship Network, and explores how networks have a unique ability to find inclusive solutions to complex problems.
The Narwhal’s Carbon Cache series explores four stories of how communities are protecting natural landscapes in Canada to fight against the climate crisis.
The Land Trust Alliance highlights its Common Ground Implementation Framework, which outline’s the Alliance’s key community-centered conservation and diversity, equity and inclusion priorities and activities.
Conservation Corridor post explores what continent-wide, transboundary connectivity looks like, highlighting a new analysis that models potential linkages between protected areas across all of North America.
Article in Yale Environment 360 highlights how impending climate change impacts are threatening existing conservation areas, and how conservation approaches will need to adjust to accommodate climate refuges and vital wildlife corridors.
The Cascades to Coast Landscape Collaborative launches its Conservation Program Explorer, a simple web-based tool to help private landowners identify based on geographic location which state and federal incentive programs could support the stewardship of their farm and forest lands.
The Narwhal article spotlights southern Ontario’s Greenbelt ringing greater Toronto, highlighting its origins and successes over the last two decades and identifying the issues and challenges that the landscape continues to face as development pressures intensify.
New online mapping tool launches that allows users to explore the climate mitigation and biodiversity protection benefits—and opportunities—of public lands throughout the United States.
Article in the Mountain Journal explores how Yellowstone National Park—on the cusp of its 150th anniversary—is acknowledging the historical and ongoing tribal connections to the park and its surrounding landscape.
Yale Environment 360 interview with Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians, explores why protecting tribal rights is key to fighting climate change.
The Western Governors' Association shares results of a survey on the interdependent relationships between western communities and state and federal land / resource management entities, and the role that local communities play in successful land planning and management processes.
Article in REI’s Uncommon Path explores what it means to be “outdoorsy,” highlighting how the outdoor recreation narrative has problematically excluded peoples and communities.
High Country News article highlights the growing body of “fence ecology” research, which is helping land managers in the western United States better understand how fences are harming wildlife—and better identify solutions.
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Upcoming Conferences & Events
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Virtual conference
Virtual conference
Salt Lake City, UT
Gulf Coast, Alabama
A virtual festival
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Landscape Conservation Job Board
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Land Conservation Coordinator, Georgia Conservancy (working in partnership with the Georgia Sentinel Landscape)
Conservation Program Associate, Hispanic Access Foundation
Director, Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed
Communications Intern, Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed
Development & Operations Coordinator, The Blackfoot Challenge
Director of the Tribal Collaboration Initiative, Archaeology Southwest
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
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The Highstead Foundation and the Conservation Finance Network are co-hosting a Conservation Finance Learning Lab—to consist of five webinars between December 2021 and April 2022. Learn more and register
A National Forest Foundation webinar
December 2, 2021
A Yale Center for Business and the Environment Nature's Return webinar
December 2, 2021
An NPS Connected Conservation webinar
December 8, 2021
An NLC Landscape Conservation in Action webinar
December 9, 2021
A US Department of Defense REPI webinar
December 10, 2021
An NPS Connected Conservation webinar
December 15, 2021
An NPS Connected Conservation webinar
February 22, 2022
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, Interim 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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