The Landscape Conservation Bulletin |
|
A bi-monthly service of the Network for
Landscape Conservation
|
|
|
Dear Network Friends,
A time for personal reflection seems to always present itself with the arrival of a new year and these quieter winter months. During these moments, the divisiveness in our society and throughout the world, combined with accelerating climate and biodiversity crises can seem especially disheartening and overwhelming. As professionals focused on countless urgent issues affecting people and nature, how can we strengthen our efforts and more wholly address these planetary crises?
I believe the answer is ‘together.’ Inclusive, community-centered, and equitable conservation and stewardship of connected landscapes and watersheds has the potential to unite people through a shared goal of realizing a healthier, more resilient planet for all. I’ve seen this potential unfold throughout the Appalachians while working alongside inspiring colleagues and partners, all striving to center sustainable livelihoods as a pathway to long-lasting landscape-scale conservation. I hope that you have also seen this potential in the landscape where you work.
The issues we face may be countless, yet possibilities for solutions are infinite when we all work together. A future with more connected landscapes, communities, and NLC partners like you is what gives me hope as I look to the year ahead.
|
|
Models of Indigenous-led conservation & stewardship |
Perspectives: Network Coordinators |
Additional Landscape Conservation News |
Landscape Conservation Job Board |
Webinars & Additional Resources |
|
Jessie Levine
Co-Chair, Network for Landscape Conservation
Northern Appalachians Program Director, The Nature Conservancy
|
|
Cover photo: A cross-country ski trail cuts through the landscape in Mont-Saint-Bruno National Park, Quebec. Photo credit: Pierre Jarry on Unsplash.
|
|
Featured News
Replenishing Trust: New resource from Spitfire Strategies offers an ind-depth reflection on the nature of trust, and how we can better cultivate trust
|
|
There is an axiom that is resonant within the collaborative landscape conservation and stewardship space: that this is work that moves at “the speed of trust.” What this recognizes is that relationships are foundational in building the connections across sectors, perspectives, and jurisdictions that allow us achieve impactful outcomes at the landscape level.
Yet as easy as it is to acknowledge the centrality of trust, it is rare that we pause to intentionally reflect on the specifics of trust–and what we can do to cultivate our capacity to build trust within relationships and landscapes. A new resource from Spitfire Strategies offers an invitation to do so though. Drawing on more than twenty years of social science research into the building (and rebuilding) of trust and on interviews with leaders in the trust-building space, “Replenishing Trust: Civil Society’s Guide to Reversing the Trust Deficit'' is an in-depth resource and guide to more fully understanding the act of building and stewarding trust. Comprised of conceptual frameworks, case studies, and practical, action-oriented toolkits and resources, this guide provides a starting point for focusing explicit attention on a foundational element of the work of collaborative landscape conservation and stewardship that we so often leave as only implicitly understood and acknowledged–and hence under-attended to.
|
|
Featured News
Conservation as a language of 'humility and honor, respect and reciprocity, kinship and kindness'—Reflections on models for Indigenous-led conservation and stewardship.
|
|
Writing in the December Cultural Survival Quarterly–an issue dedicated to exploring Indigenous-led Conservation–Cristina Mormorunni powerfully and beautifully reflects on the return of 49 buffalo to the homelands of Blackfoot Nation to call for the bringing forth of a new, Indigenized paradigm of conservation for the 21st Century. Can we evolve the western paradigm of conservation into a language of love and relationship, a language, as Cristina eloquently writes, that speaks “humility and honor, respect and reciprocity, kinship and kindness?”
|
|
Perspectives: Landscape Conservation in Action |
|
Network stress: Unique challenges, anxieties, and insecurities that network coordinators face |
|
In this month's Perspectives piece, we reflect on the growing prevalence of networked approaches to advancing conservation and stewardship outcomes at the landscape level. This article is specifically for those of you that are coordinating and leading these partnerships, collaboratives, networks, coalitions, etc. Drawing upon his experiences working in networked spaces and from his conversations with network coordinators within the Catalyst Fund and broader NLC community of practice, Network Director Jon Peterson explores a set of common challenges and stresses that consistently and regularly arise for network coordinators--challenges that are related to the specifics of working in networked fashion. In naming and acknowledging the Loneliness Paradox, the Insufficiency Illusion, and the Imposter Syndrome, our hope is that we can diminish the weight we feel from these common challenges and stresses. Doing so will allow us to feel more comfortable, confident, and empowered in our work--accelerating our capacity to achieve the outcomes that we need in the face of daunting, interwoven, and seemingly intractable challenges like biodiversity loss, climate change, and environmental injustice. |
|
Additional Landscape Conservation News |
|
In December, the U.S. Department of the Interior released a new Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap–an online tool that pulls together implementation strategies, project planning resources, and successful example projects to support the accelerated implementation of nature-based solutions.
At the COP 28 meeting in Dubai, 1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People released a systems-perspective call to action to remake the global funding system currently being used to address interwoven biodiversity, climate, and social crises so that it can support holistic landscape efforts led at the local level.
Hewlett Foundation Program Officer Andrea Keller Helsel offers reflections on the importance of community-led conservation for achieving durable outcomes in the face of the interwoven biodiversity and climate crises.
Designing Nature's Half: New podcast launches to explore the complexities of landscape conservation
Last week, the Biden Administration released the third annual progress report on its America the Beautiful Initiative.
A blogpost from the Environmental Dispute Resolution Program in the Wallace Stegner Center at the University of Utah reflects on productive conflict choices–and how to orient to these instead of defaulting to destructive conflict tendencies.
James Gustave Speth, writing in Yale Environment 360, suggests that adapting to climate change requires a “systemic adaptation” that fundamentally changes our economy, our politics, and our priorities in ways that put community and the planet first.
The U.S. Department of Transportation announced more than $110 million in federal funding as part of its new Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program in December–and a synposis from the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative offers insights into how such investments are hitting the ground with impact within a specific landscape.
First Nations Development Institute releases new report that elevates the regional issues and solutions on climate change continually being addressed across Indian Country.
Land Trust Alliance President and CEO Andrew Bowman offered reflections from the recent COP28 meeting on the importance of natural climate solutions.
Reflection piece from Patricia Hernandez of Headwaters Economics explores how conservation can contribute to equitable communities, askingconservation practitioners to better consider how their work supports social issues, including livability and housing affordability.
In a recent podcast, a Mongabay reporter speaks with Linda Martin on her new book about ecological restoration, and explores the mindset shift required to consider tackling biodiversity loss via a restorative approach that is human-inclusive and mobilizes public participation rather than exclusion.
A new report from the Center for American Progress highlights the Biden Administration’s progress on its priority of conserving public lands.
|
|
Upcoming Conferences & Events
* * *
Washington, DC
Lethbridge, Alberta
Washington, DC
Grand Junction, Colorado
Coeur D’Alene, Idaho
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Tucson, Arizona
Estes Park, Colorado
Durham, North Carolina
Grand Rapids, Michigan
New Haven, Connecticut
Applications dues by February 16, 2024
Montreal, Quebec
Anchorage, AK
October 16-18, 2024 — Global Congress of the International Land Conservation Network: Relationships for a Resilient World
Quebec, Canada
More information coming
ILCN is accepting session proposals through February 15, 2024--see here for more information, including for the five conference focal area tracks, one of which is “Large Landscape Conservation.”
|
|
Landscape Conservation Job Board
* * *
Coordinator, Tahoe-Central Sierra Initiative
Conservation Connect Fellowship Program, National Forest Foundation
Program Coordinator, Pure Water Partners
Post-doctoral scholars, James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center for Large Landscape Conservation and the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center for Data Science and Environment, UC Berkeley
Director, Resilient Landscapes Program, San Francisco Estuary Institute
River Advocacy Fellow, Delaware Riverkeeper Network
New Jersey and New York Greenway Manager, East Coast Greenway Alliance
South Carolina and Georgia Greenway Manager, East Coast Greenway Alliance
Forest & Mitigation Program Manager, Clear Creek Watershed & Forest Health Partnership
Community Navigator Program Fellowship, Coalitions and Collaboratives, Inc.
Post-Fire Navigators Coordinator, Coalitions and Collaboratives, Inc.
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
Call for nominations: The 2025 World Monuments Watch is now accepting nominations. The 2025 Watch seeks to tell stories about how cultural and natural heritage today is connected to global challenges and opportunities, including climate change as one of our priority foci. World Monuments Fund (WMF) invites nominations for heritage places facing urgent challenges. Every two years, the Watch selects 25 places that tell a local story with global relevance and works with communities to amplify preservation efforts through advocacy, capacity building, and close collaboration with WMF’s expert team and professionals around the world. Nominations accepted through March 15, 2024.
* * * *
An NLC Landscape Conservation in Action webinar
January 31, 2024
A webinar hosted by the National Congress of American Indians Foundation and the America the Beautiful for All Coalition
February 1, 2024
A Wallace Stegner Center Green Bag webinar
February 8, 2024
A Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center Science Seminar webinar
February 15, 2024
February 22, 2024
A Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center Science Seminar webinar
May 15, 2024
Every two weeks, your hosts sit down with thought leaders, innovators, conservationists, and scientists to raise awareness, inspire dialogue, and encourage engagement in designing sustainable and resilient landscapes before it’s too late. Large landscape conservation is complex, but Designing Nature’s Half breaks the conversation into manageable pieces for novices and experts alike.
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.
|
|
The Network for Landscape Conservation is the community of practice for practitioners advancing collaborative, cross-boundary conservation and stewardship as an essential approach to protect nature, culture, and community in the 21st Century.
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
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
