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,
Our founding director, Emily Bateson, is moving on to new adventures from the Network. This will be a major transition for the organization. Emily has been our passionately committed and inspirational leader for the last five years. She played a key role in moving the Network from an idea to a functioning organization that is driving innovation in collaborative landscape-scale conservation in North America. Today, the Network has more than 200 institutional partners and nearly 4,000 individual members.
As we navigate this transition, the entire Coordinating Committee is stepping forward to engage deeply in envisioning the Network’s future, one that builds on the remarkable growth of the last five years to position the Network as the central hub for connecting practitioners to ideas and innovations—and to one another—as we all work to accelerate the pace of landscape conservation across the nation. Our work is more important now than ever. Ernest Cook has agreed to serve as interim Director, and can be reached via email here. Please be in touch if you have thoughts or reflections on the Network and how it can support and advance your work in your own landscapes—we look forward to hearing from you.
All the very best,
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Permanent full funding for LWCF |
Additional Landscape Conservation News |
Landscape Conservation Job Board |
Webinars & Additional Resources |
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Ernest Cook
Network Interim Director & Co-Chair
Land/Water Associates
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Julie Regan
Network Co-Chair
Tahoe Regional Planning Agency
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Cover photo: View across Crystal Lake in Eaton, New Hampshire. Photo by Peter Lewis on Unsplash.
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Featured News
Full and permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund is signed into law—as evidence continues to mount on the urgency of accelerating conservation efforts at the landscape scale
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At the release of our July Landscape Conservation Bulletin, the Great American Outdoors Act had passed Congress but had yet to be signed into law. That changed in early August, as the President signed into law more than $9 billion in funding to address maintenance backlogs at national parks and forests and full and permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The LWCF is a critical tool for accelerating conservation efforts across our landscapes, and will now provide $900 million annually to protect important land, water, and recreation areas that benefit all Americans. This comes at a pivotal moment, as new reports continue to emerge underscoring the imperative for urgent action. For instance, the 2020 update of the World Wildlife Fund’s biennial Living Planet Report finds that animal populations have declined on average 68% since 1970, as human overconsumption, population growth and intensive agriculture continue to push wildlife populations to the brink. Elsewhere, an article from Yale’s Environment360 magazine highlights new research that shows a marked decrease in landscape resilience across North American biomes. Further, a special report from The Trust for Public Land highlights inequalities in access to nature: parks serving majority nonwhite neighborhoods are disproportionately smaller and more crowded. Collectively these reports only underscore the importance of working at the landscape scale to sustain the landscapes in which we all live, and now the LWCF stands as a dedicated tool to advance proactive conservation visions in landscapes across the nation.
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Featured News
The Network’s Virtual Policy Forum digs into the question, What does the future of landscape conservation look like?
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Conservation has long been a bipartisan issue in this country, and there is increasing agreement that conservation at the larger landscape scale is essential to address not only pressing ecological issues such as water, fire, and climate, but also to simultaneously address community health and vitality, cultural heritage, access to local farms and forests, equitable access to clean air, water, and the outdoors, and to sustain for future generations our irreplaceable landscapes. |
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On July 31st, the Network for Landscape Conservation brought together leading policy experts to discuss the state of collaborative landscape conservation in the United States, and strategies for advancing landscape conservation funding and policy at this critical time. Moderated by Sacha Spector of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the forum convened a panel consisting of Sally Jewell (former US Secretary of the Interior), Collin O’Mara (National Wildlife Federation), Mamie Parker (US Fish and Wildlife Service, retired), Lynn Scarlett (The Nature Conservancy), and Tony Wasley (Director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife). Terry Tatsey of the Blackfeet Nation, who opened the Forum with a welcome that highlighted the deep relationship between Indigenous people and the lands they know and love, stayed on to join the discussion as well. The discussion covered a wide range of topics (and essential ingredients) related to building and sustaining a landscape conservation framework for the future. Topics included implementing recently passed legislation, building equity and inclusion in landscape collaboratives, climate solutions, a better governance model to support landscape conservation, and ways we can work together to build and sustain a vibrant coalition. A recording of the forum is available, and a summary of this event is being written and will be shared. Also, be sure and watch for future landscape conservation policy forums being planned for later this year.
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Featured News
A language for our landscapes: Understanding the power of the cultural and social meaning of landscapes
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Landscapes are biophysical realities and, as conservationists, we often focus on the biological and physical elements as we work to scale efforts to conserve at a systems level. More often overlooked though is that landscapes are social and cultural realities too, and that the meaning that we embed in the landscapes in which we live can have profound impact on how we think about the future of these landscapes. Two recent pieces from Emergence Magazine call attention to the social and cultural context of our landscapes, and suggest the importance of broadening our thinking and perspective as we continue our work. As part of a series on the struggle for Indigenous language survival, the magazine shares a multimedia story on the Karuk tribe along the Klamath River in northern California. Honoring a deep connection between language and the River and landscape, Karuk speakers are working to keep their words, traditions, and connections to the land alive. A follow up podcast on the Karuk “language keepers” is also available. Elsewhere, Emergence hosted author Robert MacFarlane—who writes profoundly about relationship to place—for an in-depth interview on the power of using language to name the living world, and how doing so with specificity and intentionality empowers connection to landscapes, forests, waterways, and other natural spaces. And bringing some of these themes together, Brenda Barrett writes in the Living Landscape Observer about the critical importance of storytelling, and the power of stories to serve as a key element or “organizing concept” in efforts to conserve our landscapes.
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Additional Landscape Conservation News |
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The importance of private working lands to landscape conservation: A Biographic article highlights the role of cattle ranchers in Florida conservation while an article in The Narwhal highlights the role of 80,000 small private woodlot owners in conserving the Arcadian Forest of Atlantic Canada/northern New England.
New report highlights Sentinel Landscapes 2020 accomplishments.
The Salazar Center for North American Conservation announces its inaugural Connectivity Challenge recipient, awarding the Borderlands Research Institute the $100,000 prize for its innovative efforts to conserve agaves, increase agricultural sustainability, and protect bats in the US-Mexico borderlands.
New report from the Aspen Institute and The Wilderness Society explores how U.S. public lands can contribute to solving the climate and biodiversity crises, as well as help address the racial inequities we face in our country.
The Nature Conservancy announces grant awards for its Nature Climate Solutions Accelerator grant program.
Article in The Narwhal highlights efforts underway in Canada to conserve and restore native grassland landscapes as a natural climate solution.
The Northeast Wilderness Trust has launched a new initiative—The Wildlands Partnership—to accelerate the pace of wilderness conservation across New England and New York.
Article in Civil Beat underscores the connection between forest conservation at the landscape scale and drinking water, highlighting work underway in Hawaii’s forests to preventing a ‘freshwater crisis.’
Conservation Finance Network article highlights the value of aligning community objectives and conservation through unique partnerships.
The National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Network hosted a virtual roundtable on conservation, climate change, and the Covid pandemic this summer, and has released a summary report that builds upon the discussion and a pre-roundtable questionnaire.
EcoAgriculture Partners release new report that explores emerging models for mobilizing finance across sectors and projects to achieve sustainable landscapes.
Conservation Corridor article explores new research around the conservation importance of “greater ecosystems” surrounding protected areas.
The 2020 Lake Tahoe Summit was held virtually in August around the theme of “Resilient Tahoe” and brought together the entire congressional delegation, the Governors of California and Nevada, and other federal and local dignitaries.
As the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation, a limited-life foundation, approaches its sunset at the end of 2020, it has released an updated version of its Resiliency Guide for nonprofit organizations.
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Upcoming Conferences & Events
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Virtual Event
Virtual Event
The session on the 13th--on the theme of Tribal Climate Change Policy--will be the first in a series of virtual sessions that will be hosted from October 2020 through May 2021.
Virtual Event
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Landscape Conservation Job Board
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Chief Executive Officer, Sonoran Institute
Vice President for Landscape Conservation, Defenders of Wildlife
Vice President, Natural Climate Solutions and Working Lands; National Audubon Society
Vice President, Mississippi Flyway; National Audubon Society
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 Center for Large Landscape Conservation is conducting a survey to learn about challenges and opportunities for addressing wildlife habitat connectivity in land trust conservation efforts--Take the survey here.
In September, the Network hosted a presentation, "Sustaining Funding for Landscape Collaboration: Lessons from the field." This emerged from a 2019 Catalyst Fund grant award to the Staying Connected Initiative to undertake an analysis of funding models for sustaining the core collaboration functions of the partnership. A recording of the presentation is available here.
An Infrastructure and Nature Pavilion Series webinar
October 1, 2020
Note: this is the first in a Infrastructure and Nature webinar series that will run October-December 2020--view the full set of sessions here.
A National Forest Foundation Peer Learning session
October 8, 2020
An NPS Connected Conservation webinar
October 14, 2020
A Wallace Stegner Center Green Bag webinar
October 15, 2020
An NPS Connected Conservation webinar
November 4, 2020
An NPS Connected Conservation webinar
November 18, 2020
A Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program Fall Resilience Series webinar
November 18, 2020
An International Land Conservation Network webinar
December 3, 2020
An NPS Connected Conservation webinar
December 9, 2020
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.
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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, and resources for future Bulletins are welcomed. We also welcome inquires for 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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