2023 Schedule – Pacific Time

This session will showcase new conservation tools being deployed to address land access, which presents the greatest challenge for diverse, next generation farmers. The Working Farms Fund utilizes a replicable and scalable first-of-its-kind Buy-Support-Protect-Sell model, providing land access and a path to land ownership for small to mid-size farms while increasing the supply of local food and bolstering farmer support resources. In this interactive session, a cross-cutting panel that includes farmers and The Conservation Fund’s Working Farms Fund program staff will engage the audience in discussion on the realities of transitioning farms to the next generation in the Midwest and Southeast through the Buy-Support-Protect-Sell model, expanding the program to meet national demand for farmland protection, providing meaningful farmer support resources including funding for climate-smart practices and leveraging federal resources for conservation easements to permanently protect farmland.

Irrigated lands comprise over 60 percent of wetland habitat in the snowpack-driven systems of the Intermountain West. The greatest threat to wetlands in this region—and the migratory bird networks they support—is climate change and the associated landscape drying that leads to wetland loss. This effect has reduced the availability of wetland habitats across large portions of the West by nearly 50 percent over the past two decades. Conserving flood irrigated wet meadows contributes to system-wide resiliency, providing key habitat for migratory birds, sustaining floodplain function, recharging aquifers and supporting agricultural communities. The Intermountain West Joint Venture (IWJV) established Water 4 to conserve working wet meadows and water in ways that matter to people. The IWJV has developed spatial planning tools that track wetland dynamics and surface water trends (wetland habitat in space and time) by month, over 35+ years, across the 11 states of the Intermountain West. This powerful science enables strategic implementation of partner-driven projects benefitting people, wildlife, and the landscape and is a critical tool for evaluating landscape resilience in the face of a drying climate. IWJV has partnered with the Partnership of Rangeland Trusts (PORT) and its member organizations and other land trusts and conservation organizations across the intermountain west to deliver impactful and meaningful conservation of wetland habitat. This session is intended to share a case study on how science-driven partnerships can lead to greater conservation and link to available funding for conservation easements.

As drought conditions worsen across the west and weather patterns become less predictable, we ask ourselves as a land trust: What tools can we provide to help our community best steward their working lands for a more variable future? In this session, we will explore the evolution of one small grants program and the launch of an emergency initiative that gained more permanence as it evolved. First, we will provide historical context of how Marin Agricultural Land Trust has worked to protect and steward the working lands of Marin county. We will explain the impacts of the Stewardship Assistance Program which has been operating since 2002. Second, this session will highlight how staff responded to emergency drought conditions by developing a strategic initiative to address water insecurities and stewardship objectives. We will focus on how imperative it was for different teams at the organization to come together in order to achieve a common goal. Fundraising, communications and the conservation teams worked together to create an initiative focused on drought resilience. We will discuss program guidelines, scoring criteria and highlight a few projects. We will round out the session by discussing next steps for these small grants programs. The goal remains to increase agricultural utility, build in climate resilience and protect valuable ecological values while remaining nimble and adaptable in such unpredictable times,

This session will provide an overview of the heirs' property issues, and how it impacts the conservation of working lands, and heirs' property owners in the United States. The session will address the historical and present day uniqueness of the issue to underserved and minority communities, and discuss some of the remedies available to heirs' property owners.

In January of 2022, farms in Maine began testing high for the second time for PFAS contamination. PFAS or “forever chemicals” are found in many products, last for generations, and are tied to multiple health issues. Since the 1970s, farms across the country have been encouraged to spread municipal and industrial sewage sludge residuals on their fields, unaware of the PFAS chemicals they contain or their long-term impacts. Maine is one of the first states to take a comprehensive approach to investigating PFAS contamination on farms, supporting impacted farmers and preventing future contamination. This session will explore how land trusts, their allies and states can respond to PFAS contamination on farms, and actions that need to be taken on the federal level to address this issue.

In this workshop, we will walk land trust managers and landowners through the development of an Avoided Conversion of Grassland project. This will be an interactive session where land trust managers and landowners will identify whether their region of focus is eligible for avoided conversion of grassland projects and the requirements for grassland project development. The session will review considerations for developing a grassland carbon offset project: cost, contracts and long-term commitments. It will be welcome for interaction regarding specific projects and address concerns landowners may have. Attendees will walk away with a basic understanding of stakeholders involved in development and how to begin evaluating whether a grassland project is a fit for their land trust.

Grasslands of the mountain west are among the most ecologically essential, and threatened landscapes in the region. Grassland birds, for example, are among the fastest declining of native species, having lost 53% of their population since the 1970s. Mid-elevation meadows, savannas, chaparral and forests in southwestern Oregon and northwest California — a biodiversity hotspot known as the Klamath-Siskiyou region — combine immense carbon capture potential, diverse habitats, and an integral place in the regional ranching economy. But conservation and working lands interests often are considered to conflict, particularly when cattle are involved. Three practitioners from conservation easement lands in Southern Oregon and Northern California will discuss integrating conservation-oriented grazing, riparian and weed management approaches that sustainably reconcile ranching with climate resilience, watershed restoration and protection of sensitive flora and fauna, mutually benefiting migratory fish and wildlife corridors while conducting economically viable, sustainable agriculture on conserved working lands.

Dramatic changes are occurring in much of rural America. This is particularly true in our working landscapes of forests and agriculture. Ownership structures are shifting from local or regional to large multi-national organizations with only passing interests in local impacts of their land use like limiting public access, externalizing the costs of sedimentation and other by-products, and perhaps most importantly, conversion and fragmentation of large blocks of working lands. Locally owned community forests offer a unique opportunity to impact this trend in a positive way. Community Forests protect drinking water, provide access, generate revenue through management, store carbon through improved management practices, protect habitat, and if managed creatively, can provide other economic benefits through the evolving recreation economy. They also build community cohesion through a "common cause" sensibility. Local ownership is a profound game changer for rural America. We will present two case studies of the successful creation of community forests using Federal Community Forest and State Revolving Funds (clean water act), one in New England and the other in the Pacific Northwest. These presentations will be lead by the local project managers who lead these efforts along with local community representatives who envisioned then lead the efforts in their communities. We will then talk about continues efforts around fund raising, community involvement and economic development as these communities actualize their visions and will end with an extended Q and A period.

Regional. Conservation. Partnership. Program. Each of those four words serve parallel roles when implementing a USDA-NRCS RCPP. However, "Partnership" takes on a new meaning with Farm Bill 2018 RCPPs. Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District and The Conservation Fund will discuss their lessons learned and what it takes to implement an $18 million RCPP in Southeastern Wisconsin. The session will review our mistakes and adaptations with implementing entity-held easements (yes, we have acquired easements!), and land management (obligated >$1.4 million in two years!), land rental (the hidden gem), outreach, education, research, staffing, funding and how we support our partners to achieve outcomes. Throughout the session, we will open the discussion to all attendees to describe their road blocks, mistakes, adaptations, lessons learned and to bring their issues to the group for insight and guidance... taking "Partnership" to another level at Rally.