The Landscape Conservation Bulletin
A bi-monthly service of the Network for 
Landscape Conservation
September 2023
Dear Network Friends,

Although the foliage seems a bit behind schedule, Fall is certainly afoot here in southern New England, with a cold rain falling from clouds hovering amongst the hills that are just starting to show their colors. The changing of the seasons always nudges me into a reflective, nostalgic mood, aware of the marching of time. Time is made more present, more obvious as we see the changes—subtle or dramatic—unfolding across the landscape.

Within the landscape movement we are perhaps feeling time more acutely now too, as we see a convergence of urgency and opportunity—Urgency around goals like 30x30 and the notion that this decade is our last best hope to change the climate trajectory and avoid drastic impacts; and opportunity from the massive influx of federal funding for conservation, stewardship, and restoration.

Under this pressure of time and urgency and opportunity, it is perhaps especially important to remember to take time to connect with one another, to listen to one another, and to work together, in community, to explore how we wish to shape our future relationship with our landscapes. I am always struck by the powerful example that Catalyst Fund grantees offer on this front—I hope you saw the announcement of the 2023 grant awards earlier this month.

Wishing you all a wonderful Fall, and looking forward to continuing to be in touch!
In This Issue
New Resource on Collaboration
White House Summit on Building Climate Resilient Communities
Perspectives: Insights from Northwest Florida
Additional Landscape Conservation News
Upcoming Events
Landscape Conservation Job Board
Webinars & Additional Resources
Jonathan Peterson
Program Manager
Cover photo: Autumn in Old Sturbridge Village, Massachusetts. Photo by Rusty Watson on Unsplash.
‌
Featured News
New resources aim to deepen our understanding of how to collaborate effectively for landscape impact
The collaborative landscape movement continues to grow and mature, with practitioners increasingly recognizing the opportunity and potential to achieve larger impact and accelerate efforts by working collaboratively across jurisdictions, boundaries, and sectors. As collaborative approaches become more and more prevalent, our understanding of the practice of collaborating effectively grows, and we are recognizing the need to think more intentionally about how to equip practitioners with the skills, knowledges, and mindsets to operate successfully in collaborative spaces. A growing body of knowledge and experience is taking shape around the practice of collaborating effectively for landscape impact, and a series of articles and resources from the last few months offer new contributions here.

Writing in the most recent issue of the Wildlife Management Institute’s Outdoor News Bulletin, the Conservation Without Conflict coalition offers a step-by-step guide for advancing collaborative conservation. Elsewhere, the Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes and partners have released a new resource that presents a four-stage readiness framework for collaboratives, and outlines benchmarks and outcomes associated with each stage. Though emerging out of collaboratives focused primarily on wildfire management, the framework is broadly applicable to collaboratives working on a diversity of landscape challenges. Finally, so much of the effectiveness of collaboration is rooted in relational dynamics, and how we show up and orient ourselves in collaborative spaces is a critical element to success; reflecting on this, Danya Rumore, the Director of the Environmental Dispute Resolution Program in the Wallace Stegner Center at the University of Utah, has shared a series of blog posts over the last several months that offer insights into the mindset orientation needed to effectively navigate conflict and collaboration, calling attention to the need for calm, curiosity, and creativity as basic ingredients—before suggesting that compassion is the foundational prerequisite upon which all else is built. 

Featured News
White House Summit on Building Climate Resilient Communities highlights federal action at both ends of the locally led, nationally scaled spectrum
At this week’s White House Summit on Building Climate Resilient Communities, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced four new Departmental Manuals to strengthen the Department of the Interior’s ability to meet its mission in the face of a changing climate. These important policies—oriented to ensuring that science, Indigenous Knowledge, and landscape-scale management serve as the foundation for Departmental decisions—provide guidance for the Department as it considers how to advance climate adaptation and resilience for our natural landscapes and communities. Learn more and explore the Department Manuals here.

Such actions at the departmental level speak to the importance of ensuring that conservation and stewardship activities are nationally scaled. Yet it was also exciting to see the announcement out of the White House Summit that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency will be utilizing Inflation Reduction Act funds to launch a Climate Smart Communities Initiative. This initiative, to be developed and managed by the Climate Resilience Fund and partners, is intended to build capacity and help communities across the country—especially those that have been historically under-resourced communities and that are most vulnerable to climate impacts—develop equitable and effective climate resilience plans. Similar to how the recent NOAA Climate Resilience Regional Challenge included a track to provide capacity support for building and coordinating landscape-scale collaboration, this speaks to the important role that federal agencies can play in resourcing and support the local efforts that will drive sustainable, equitable futures for the landscapes and communities that we care about. With unprecedented public funding becoming available for advancing conservation and stewardship actions in the face of the interwoven biodiversity, climate, and environmental injustice crises, we continue to believe that targeted support for building collaborative capacity in landscapes across the country is a critical missing piece. 
Perspectives: Landscape Conservation in Action

Moving from visioning to action: Insights from the first year of the Northwest Florida Sentinel Landscape Partnership
The Northwest Florida Sentinel Landscape (NWFSL) was designated in early 2022, the culmination of a four-year campaign that brought together a broad coalition of partners interested in collaborating to achieve more together than they could achieve individually. In this month’s Perspective piece, Kent Wimmer, NWFSL coordinator, continues to reflect on insights and lessons learned from the emergence of the Northwest Florida Sentinel Landscape. In a November 2022 reflection piece, Kent had highlighted the key factors and successes that allowed agencies and non-governmental organizations to come together to build a broad coalition of partners—and sustain that coalition through the onset of the pandemic—to successfully realize the designation of this new Sentinel Landscape. This follow-up article highlights how the partnership has moved forward post-designation, underscoring how consistent leadership and support is aiding collaboration to achieve landscape conservation goals and how our partnership is adapting to evolving needs of its partners to be a more effective.

Photo credit: Longleaf pine and palmetto forest in the Apalachicola National Forest, in the Northwest Florida Sentinel Landscape; By Julie Tew courtesy of Defenders of Wildlife.
‌
Additional Landscape Conservation News
Writing in Mongabay, Valérie Courtois of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, and Steve Kallick of the Resources Legacy Fund, articulate the critical need to make space for Indigenous leadership in conservation. 

Article in Southern Science highlights the recent designation of the Black Belt National Heritage Area, and explores the work of the Alabama River Diversity Network in weaving together natural, historical, and cultural partners to advance an integrated, community-grounded vision for the landscape. 

Looking ahead to the upcoming fifth annual International Symposium on Conservation Impact, Salazar Center's External Advisory Board member Lynn Scarlett offers a reflection on the critical need to bring people together for collaborative problem solving in the face of systems-level challenges we are facing around biodiversity loss and climate change.
The Salazar Center's International Symposium on Conservation Impact will be held October 11-12 in Denver, CO, and will focus on Nature-Positive Solutions for all.

A recent white paper from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy considers landscape partnership models that have emerged in the United States to explore how whole-landscape approaches may accelerate conservation and climate outcomes in Canada.

Reconnection and Renewal: Storymap from the Intermountain West Joint Venture explores a case study of the successful stewardship and restoration work that has unfolded over the last fifteen years on the first tribally-held private land conservation easement in the country.

Article in Inside Climate News highlights efforts by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe to build collaborative approaches to sustaining cougar populations on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. 

Article in The Week highlights the newly launched Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science, and explores how the blending of Indigenous knowledge of the environment with Western scientific methods has enormous potential for helping communities around the world confront climate change.

Road ecology goes mainstream: Author Ben Goldfarb joins NPR’s On Fresh Air to discuss his new book, Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet.

Highlighting innovative applications of satellite Earth observations in support of natural resource management, article in Mongabay explores how NASA is collaborating with the Idaho Department of Fish and Wildlife to track ecosystem restoration following the reintroduction of beaver to the landscape.  

A collaborative study in Oregon has produced an interconnected network of Priority Wildlife Connectivity Areas for the state, identifying the highest-value parts of the landscape for facilitating wildlife movement, and providing a resource to ensure that wildlife connectivity can be accounted for in the planning and implementation of development, resource extraction, habitat management, restoration, conservation, and other land use activities.
Read more about the project and explore the associated interactive map

The power of shared common ground: NPR piece highlights how the Common Ground Alliance has worked to build bridges across divides in the interest of advancing a shared future for the Adirondack landscape in up-state New York. 

Article in the Minnesota Reformer captures the growing movement to restore Tribes’ role in managing the lands and waters within their ancestral territories.

The Salazar Center’s inaugural Peregrine Accelerator for Conservation Impact program announces three recipients of funding to advance innovative solutions for ecological and human health in the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo river basin.

Article in Inside Climate News explores an emerging ‘One Health’ model that recognizes the interconnectedness of humans, animals, and the environment. 
‌
Upcoming Conferences & Events

* * *


October 2-4, 2023 — 12th Northwest Climate Conference
Boise, Idaho

Missoula, Montana

Denver, Colorado

Pensacola Beach, Florida

Grand Junction, Colorado

November 7-9, 2023 — 2023 National Trails Workshop
Orlando, Florida

Amherst, Massachusetts

February 20-22, 2024 — Conservation without Conflict Summit
Washington, DC
More information coming

January 29-30, 2024 — The Stewardship Network Conference
East Lansing, Michigan

Grand Junction, Colorado

Tucson, Arizona

Estes Park, Colorado
‌
Landscape Conservation Job Board

* * *

Outreach and Engagement Program Officer, Buffalo Nations Grasslands Alliance

Land Conservation Program Officer, Buffalo Nations Grasslands Alliance

Network Director, Indigenous Stewardship Network

Connectivity Coordinator, Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative

Tribal Climate Resilience Liaison, Great Plains Tribal Water Alliance 

Coordinator, Emerging Leadership Working Group, Western Collaborative Conservation Network

Community Navigator Program Director, Coalitions and Collaboratives, Inc.

Executive Director, Susquehanna Greenway Partnership

Executive Director, Grand Staircase Escalante Partners

California Grazing Lands Coalition Coordinator, Western Landowners Alliance

Western Water Program Director, Western Landowners Alliance

Western Grazing Lands Coalition Manager, Western Landowners Alliance

West-wide Communications Associate, Western Landowners Alliance


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



A REPI webinar series webinar
October 10, 2023

A webinar by the Western Collaborative Conservation Network
October 26, 2023

A virtual workshop from Compass
November 14-15, 2023

A three-part workshop from the Institute for Conservation Leadership
November 30 through December 12, 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.

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.

STAY CONNECTED
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
‌