This spring the Conservation Leadership Network piloted a new course on Conservation Financing, offered a second pilot of the highly successful Mitigation Banking Course for Interagency Review Teams, and convened land-owners, land trusts, and government agencies in an action planning summit for the Chesapeake Forests.
We partnered with the Wasatch Front Regional Council, the Utah Department of Natural Resources, and the United States Forest Service to offer a week-long, placed-based Green Infrastructure workshop – Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities, held in Salt Lake City, Utah in May 2008.This unique course provided participants with a strategic approach for prioritizing conservation opportunities and a planning framework for integrating green and built infrastructure alike. Through hand-on class projects, lectures, case studies, and a local field trip, participants experienced first-hand how the green infrastructure approach can be used to connect the environmental, social, and economic fabric across urban, suburban, and rural settings.
In partnership with the Land Trust Alliance, through the Land Conservation Leadership Program, CLN piloted a new course this spring: “From Bucks to Acres” – Creating Conservation Success. This course, held May 12 – 15, 2008 at the National Conservation Training Center, introduced land trust professionals to the basics and challenges of working with market-based financing tools to achieve conservation results. From borrowed capital and wetland mitigation banking to carbon sequestration and identification of conservation buyers, participants learned that today’s high-value land conservation opportunities often require a ’layer cake’ approach to achieve success.
On May 28 – 30, 2008, The Chesapeake Forest Conservation Summit was held in Shepherdstown, West Virginia at the National Conservation Training Center. The Summit was hosted by The Conservation Fund, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, the Chesapeake Network for Education of Municipal Officials (NEMO), Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, and the NPS Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance Program (RTCA). More than 70 private forest landowners, lands trusts, and local and state government agency representatives from across Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Delaware convened for the first time to explore strategies and develop a collective action agenda for protecting the forests of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Summit focused on three overarching themes: 1) communication of local and regional preservation priorities; 2) development of viable tools and incentives to facilitate forest preservation; and 3) establishment of an ongoing network to maintain the momentum established by the recently released Chesapeake Bay Program Forest Conservation Directive (Forest Directive #06-1) and the publication of the State of the Chesapeake Forests report published last year, both of which illustrate the need for a commitment to protect the Chesapeake’s forests. The Summit concluded with the development of a collective action agenda comprised of six overarching ‘big picture’ action items:
Workgroups were formed for each of the six overarching theme areas and were tasked with further fleshing out the concepts and developing strategies for implementation. The Design Team in conjunction with representation from each of the Workgroups will continue to work together. If you would like a copy of the Summit report, please contact Margarita Carey at mcarey@conservationfund.org
The Conservation Fund and the Environmental Law Institute, in partnership with the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, delivered a second pilot offering of the Training Course for Mitigation Banking Interagency Review Teams this June. This comprehensive week-long training for federal and state regulators who serve on mitigation bank Interagency Review Teams (IRTs) is designed to increase the effectiveness of IRTs in reviewing proposed mitigation banks and overseeing their operation by (1) providing a thorough grounding in the relevant federal policy guiding mitigation bank review, establishment, and management; (2) sharing expertise in how to effectively and efficiently review and oversee mitigation bank establishment and operation; and (3) teaching the leadership skills necessary to be an effective member of an IRT. This course will be offered again June 14-19, 2009.
The Conservation Leadership Network announced its fall courses for 2008, including the following offerings:
From government agencies to corporations, from private landowners to land trusts and local communities, the Fund's partners seek our expertise to:
Powered by: Phase2 TechnologyThe Conservation Fund National Office
1655 N. Fort Myer Drive, Suite 1300
Arlington, Virginia 22209-2156
Phone: 703-525-6300
Fax: 703-525-4610
Email: postmaster@conservationfund.org
