September 2025

Dear Network Friends,

Earlier this month we were honored to announce 18 new Catalyst Fund grant awards to Landscape Partnerships. With each grant cycle, we invariably come away deeply inspired by all of the proposals and how they present examples of locally driven, long-term collaboration across jurisdictions, sectors, and interests, with partners coming together to co-create and work towards a shared vision for the places they care about. This was especially so this year, with nearly 160 proposals highlighting the remarkable energy that remains committed to building better futures for people and place at the local landscape level—even as uncertainty and disruption is the prevailing narrative at the federal level.

Those 160 proposals—double what we have typically seen—made this perhaps our most competitive grant cycle ever. The Partnerships receiving grant awards and those within the broader pool of applicants alike deserve to be celebrated for the incredibly inspiring work that they are advancing across the country. 

As we reflect on the history of the Catalyst Fund to date, we now have been privileged to support more than 100 Landscape Partnerships through the Catalyst Fund. In this month’s Perspectives piece, Bob Bendick—who has participated in the review process of the Catalyst Fund since its inception—reflects on what he has experienced over the last seven years, highlighting how Landscape Partnerships can play an important role “in finding common ground among diverse interests to chart and act to achieve a good and sustainable future in landscapes across the country.” 

With federal policies, programs, and agencies facing so much uncertainty and experiencing such significant changes, this work is more important than ever before: Landscape Partnerships—as vehicles for building holistic conversations around the future of place—are vital to the long-term future of our communities and our landscapes.

As we celebrate this work, we remain so grateful to you all for contributing in so many ways to the building of our shared field of practice!

Celebrating BLM's Conservation Efforts

Community and Economic Revitalization in Appalachia

Perspectives: Reflecting on 7 Years of the Catalyst Fund

Jon Peterson

Director, Network for Landscape Conservation

Cover photo: Jemez Pueblo Forest Restoration Site. Credit: Trees, Water & People.

The Bureau of Land Management is the United States’ largest land manager, established in 1946 and today managing 245 million acres of public lands—one in ten acres in the country. This year marks the 25th anniversary of BLM’s National Conservation Lands program, which has grown to now include more than 38 million acres of protected public lands across more than 900 landscapes. In honor of this anniversary, the latest issue of Parks Stewardship Forum is a special issue celebrating the National Conservation Lands program and how it has advanced conservation successes and supported community-driven stewardship across the country. Chris Hill and Bruce Babbitt, in introducing the special issue, capture the origins and history of the program, highlighting its bold vision grounded in people, place, and possibility, and inviting readers into the articles and essays that follow. The entirety of the issue is worth exploring, but in particular this article by the late Kit Muller and Jim Kenna highlights how the National Conservation Lands system has contributed to advancing community-led landscape-scale conservation in the West. Elsewhere, Andrew Gulliford—in an excerpt from a forthcoming book—highlights how National Conservation Lands are usually advocated for and supported locally, spotlighting case studies for how Hispanic and Native American advocacy for landscape-scale conservation and co-management and co-stewardship has contributed to the growth of this protected public lands system. Building upon this theme, Hillary M. Hoffmann and Charissa Miijessepe-Wilson share an article that captures reflections and perspectives from the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and the emergence of the modern co-stewardship movement. Finally, in the closing essay of the issue, Haley Freeborn reflects on the future of the National Conservation Lands systems, noting,

“Landscapes do not align with agency boundaries…. Ultimately, we must reinforce the idea that National Conservation Lands are not remote preserves, but unites within broader, ever-evolving landscapes managed through a mosaic of jurisdictions… Inextricably connected to the daily lives of the communities that surround them, they are the parks behind schools, trailheads just outside town, river access for local kayakers and anglers, and the inspiration for future generations of neighborhood stewards. To ensure National Conservation Lands remain protected and accessible for future generations, our strategies must rise to meet the scale of landscape-level challenges while reflecting the local, everyday connections surrounding communities have with these public lands.”

There can be a tendency to think about landscape conservation and stewardship strictly as a shift in scale: conventional land protection deals simply on larger parcels. While it is of course exciting to see those types of land protection deals completed, the greatest potential behind the notion of landscape conservation and stewardship is in recognizing its ability to focus on the relationship between people and the landscapes in which we live. This summer, our friends at The Trust for Public Land announced an exciting new program that leans into this space, seeking to leverage outdoor recreation as a catalyst for economic revitalization, health equity, and climate resilience. The Appalachia United Outdoors: Connecting Communities and Outdoor Recreation Economies initiative is a multi-state effort that has been funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission to help communities throughout Appalachia strengthen their local economies through stewarding their natural assets and developing sustainable outdoor recreation infrastructure. Through this initiative, TPL will convene a coalition of more than 40 partners to support local communities in realizing new trails, community forests, and outdoor destinations, while providing training and capacity-building support to communities to ensure that they are positioned to thoughtfully develop their outdoor recreation economies. This innovative program highlights the potential of rooting our understanding of landscape conservation and stewardship in the relationship that we share with our landscapes—and serves as a powerful model for thinking about how nature-rich, community-driven outdoor spaces can be powerful drivers for strengthening the well-being of people, community, and landscape.

The Catalyst Fund shows a way to successfully conserving & stewarding America’s landscapes

As we wrap up a seventh annual Catalyst Fund grantmaking cycle with the announcement of 18 new grant awards to Landscape Partnerships, Bob Bendick, recently retired from The Nature Conservancy and a founding and continuing member of the Network's Coordinating Committee, reflects back on his experiences in participating in the grantmaking process of the Catalyst Fund since its inception. In this reflection piece, Bob highlights the valuable work that has been supported over the years through the Catalyst Fund, underscoring the breadth of benefits that the program has supported in landscapes across the country. Bob also underscores the critical need that the Catalyst Fund is providing within the broader landscape conservation and stewardship field.

Image: Network for Landscape Conservation Catalyst Fund Grant Distribution

Additional Landscape Conservation & Stewardship News

New report from the Open Space Institute highlights the role of land protection as a tool for managing nonpoint source water pollution and improving water quality at a watershed scale.

Read the report

Article in Society and Natural Resources bridges practitioner and academic perspectives to highlight collaborative capacity elements that are necessary for advancing collaborative landscape conservation and stewardship. 

Read the article

The Department of the Interior announces intent to rescind the 2024 Bureau of Land Management's Public Lands Rule, which had elevated conservation as an equal priority alongside other public land uses. 

Read the release

The release of the 2024 Sentinel Landscapes Accomplishments Report highlights how Sentinel Landscapes safeguard military installations and ranges from encroachment, strengthen resource-sharing across partners, and advance landscape conservation.

Read the report

The River Network releases a new guidebook on their River Smart Communities framework, providing resources, case studies, and best practices to help support communities in building holistic and integrated river management. 

Read more

New report from the Center for Large Landscape Conservation serves as a practical guide for planners and partners to incorporate wildlife habitat connectivity into local land use planning.

Read the report

New blogpost from Wallace Stegner Center’s Environmental Dispute Resolution Program at the University of Utah outlines ten essential elements for building successful and sustainable long-term collaborative networks. 

Read the post

Both structured and emergent? Podcast from the Collective Impact Forum explores how collaboratives can engage in both structured and planned strategies while providing space for new and rising needs. 

Listen to the podcast

Story from KUNC highlights the Colorado River Indian Tribes’ efforts to establish legal personhood status for the Colorado River.

Explore the story

Article in On Land describes how Indigenous leaders in Northern California are reclaiming traditional cultural burning practices and elevating an understanding of fire as a healing force rather than solely as a threat to be suppressed.

Read the article

This summer, the Oregon Land Justice Project traveled with land trust staff to the Yakama nation to learn more about the Tribe’s ongoing efforts to protect their sovereignty, treaty rights, and sacred lands again encroaching development projects. 

Read the article

An article in Resilience explores how ranchers and rural communities define resilience and sustainability beyond conventional metrics, highlighting how climate-smart agriculture must measure ecological outcomes as well as social indicators like farmer wellbeing, community viability, and relationship-building. 

Learn more 

A Shared Commons: Article in From the Ground Up offers a four-pillar definition on how the traditional town forest has been reinvented as the modern community forest–and highlighting the profound value of managing publicly owned woodlands through participatory decision-making.

Learn more

An article in The Narwhal highlights a new partnership between the Kainai Nation and Natural Resources Canada to launch Canada's first Indigenous fire guardians program in Alberta after decades of fire suppression policies that banned traditional land management techniques.

See more

Report from American Rivers highlights how removing aging, unsafe, and obsolete dams is an effective climate resilience strategy that protects communities, restores connectivity, and is an alternative to dam retrofits. 

Explore the report

New report from the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center offers key findings from a virtual working group process that reviewed what is known, and unknown, about managing the ecological impacts of extreme heat in the Northwest. 

Explore the conversation

A new decision support tool, Connecting Landscapes, offers an interactive interface for integrating habitat connectivity assessments into land-use planning to help stakeholders evaluate trade-offs between development and conservation.

Learn more

New paper in Forest Ecology and Management looks deeply at the intersection of forestry management, sustainability, and climate - and proposes a new definition of sustainable forestry that prioritizes mitigating and adapting to climate change. 

See the article

Upcoming Conferences & Events

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October 1-2, 2025 — Managing Wildlife in Large Landscapes: Reciprocal learnings for the world's most iconic ecosystems

Jackson Hole, WY

October 15-17, 2025 — National Habitat Conservation Plan Coalition Annual Meeting

Shepherdstown, WV

October 15-17 — American the Beautiful Coalition Convening

Virtual

October 20-23, 2025 — George Wright Society Park Forum 2025: A Conservation Solutions Workshop

Missoula, MT

November 6, 2025 — 2025 Regional Conservation Partnership Network Gathering

Amherst, MA

November 12, 2025 — Native American Fish & Wildlife Society Northeast and Southeast Joint Regional Conference

Clewiston, FL

March 4-6, 2026 — Shaping the Future of Fire in the Northwest

Stevenson, WA

April 13-14, 2026 — Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition Annual Meeting

Bend, OR

April 13-16, 2026 — National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration

Omaha, NE

May 4-7, 2026 — Gulf Conference 2026: The Annual Meeting of the Gulf of America Alliance

Mobile, AL

Landscape Conservation & Stewardship Job Board

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Estuary Program Executive Director, Choctawhatchee Bay Estuary Coalition

Learn More

Partnership Specialist, Coalitions and Collaboratives

Learn More

Network Advancement Director, Resource Rural

Learn More

Network Manager, Wildlife Resilience Funders Network

Learn More

Senior Program Officer for the Environment, Doris Duke Foundation

Learn More

Vice President of Conservation Programs, Northeast Wilderness Trust

Learn More

Fellows Program, The Center for Collaborative Conservation 

Learn More

Chief Executive Officer, Center for Large Landscape Conservation

Learn More

Project Manager, Healing Our Waters—Great Lakes Coalition

Learn More

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 and stewardship practitioners. We welcome submissions: if your organization would like to widely distribute a posting please be in touch.

Webinars & Additional Resources

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Open Space Institute has announced two new grant opportunities—Capital Grants and Catalyst Grants—through the Appalachian Landscapes Project to support conservation efforts across the 18 states of the Appalachian Mountains region. An applicant information webinar is scheduled for October 8, 2025—please register here.

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What Nonprofits Need to Know About the Current Federal Grant Landscape

A webinar from the National Council of Nonprofits

October 6, 2025

Applicant Information Webinar: Open Space Institute's Appalachian Landscapes Project

October 8, 2025

Critical Communication Practices for Collaboratives

Part three of a four-part Essentials of Collective Impact workshop, offered by the Collective Impact Forum

October 16, 2025

Tools for Collaborative Engagement and Planning

Part four of a four-part Essentials of Collective Impact workshop, offered by the Collective Impact Forum

October 23, 2025

Energizing Partnerships and Networks Training

A three-part virtual workshop presented by the Institute for Conservation Leadership

October 23, 30, & November 6, 2025

Facilitation Training Workshop

A training opportunity from Southwest Decision Resources

various dates in Fall 2025

Facilitating Engaging Meetings

A three-part virtual workshop from the Institute for Conservation Leadership

December 4, 9, & 11, 2025

Seeds of Radical Renewal Fellowship

A week-long leadership training course in Devon, UK from Emergence Magazine

June 16-20, 2026

NatureConnect 

NatureConnect is a diverse suite of services, tools, and workshops offered by the Center for Large Landscape Conservation to help partners achieve connectivity and landscape conservation goals. 

Connectivity 101

A free, online course developed by the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and partners in the Wildlife Connect Initiative with technical support from UNDP Learning for Nature. Conservation professionals and other interested parties can now register for the course to learn about conserving and restoring ecological connectivity to support a healthy planet. 

Conservation Finance Boot Camp Short Course

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.



America Adapts: The Climate Change Podcast

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.

Recordings of past webinars of the Connected Conservation webinar series are available on the National Park Service Connected Conservation website.

Recordings of past NLC Landscape Conservation in Action webinars are available on the Network's Landscape Conservation in Action Webinar Series page.