2022 Schedule – Central Time

Many tools and datasets exist to strategically inform land conservation and park creation. These tools have a robust suite of datasets that can be used for achieving other goals as well. Historically, equity-based programs often base their recruitment on low resolution data such as zip code, essays, and self-reported socioeconomic information. Now, using the robust set of data in the Trust for Public Land’s (TPL) ParkServe mapping application, participants can be screened using data about their street and neighborhoods to determine those who are most impacted by environmental inequities and for whom participation could prove the critical difference in advancing conservation and climate justice. The Sonoma Land Trust (SLT) is using the TPL’s ParkServe mapping platform to inform community engagement by enhancing outreach, empowering disproportionately impacted communities, and elevating marginalized voices. This session will focus on opportunities presented by advanced mapping datasets to inform equity-based education and community programs. TPL will provide an overview and demonstration of the equity metrics included in the ParkServe database. SLT will demonstrate how they’ve used this tool to better inform outreach, community engagement, and program participant selection. The session will end with a live testimonial by a youth program participant via Zoom and a short workshop with attendees using the application to explore how equity metrics could inform their practices in their own city. At the end of the workshop, attendees will be encouraged to share their learnings via the conference app or Twitter.

How can the stories of our connection to place help us bridge gaps? How can land provide us a canvas for healing and justice? How can we rebuild and redefine the conservation space to be more relationship based and less transactional? The Montezuma Land Conservancy (MLC) has been expanding innovative community conservation programs in Southwest Colorado and deepening its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion for the past four years. Recently this work has grown into a budding relationship with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe with the hiring of our first ever Cross-Cultural Programs Manager, Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk. This process has connected MLC to community members, elders, and tribal departments to focus reconciliation and trust building through cross-cultural program development and exploration of our shared connections to land. During this session we’ll share how these lessons have helped to influence MLC’s leadership, culture, and conservation planning and how we believe these lessons can be applied to your organization. We hope you’ll join us for this interactive session to challenge ourselves to think differently about how we define conservation. Together we will think of conservation in new ways, weave Indigenous perspectives throughout our work, and discuss how our organizations can act through a lens of relationship and reciprocity to each other and place.

The Black River, long considered a priceless ecological and cultural resource to the state of South Carolina, has emerged as a critically important asset for advancing economic progress, flood resilience, and community health in one of the most neglected regions of the state. The navigable portions of the Black River, stretching 125 miles exclusively within SC, is one of the most beautiful and under-utilized rivers in the state with the potential to offer residents and visitors a wilderness-quality experience along a coastal-plain river. This community-led vision encompasses a network of Parks stretching 70 miles along the Black River. The water trail and park network will create a unique experience for visitors and a unparalleled economic opportunity for the region. The wholistic conservation initiative along the Black River has obvious habitat connectivity, recreation and economic development opportunities. However, the secondary benefits for human resilience, including drinking water security and flood mitigation, are equally profound and important.

Building community partnerships that support common goals, leverage resources and create better outcomes is a priority for most organizations and agencies. Integrating wellness, science, agricultural career pathways, social equity, and engaging content digital content provides a unique opportunity to equip our students and community members with a relevant and meaningful connection and appreciation for stewardship of the environment, while providing valuable real-world experiences. Some partnerships continue to grow and develop over time until the sky is the limit. Others putter out and fail. Learn why it’s worth exploring partnerships to achieve equitable outdoor access in your region, how to get started, how to evaluate your success and see some examples for how this has been done in Solano County, California.

Over the last 100 years, the number of African American farm-operators has plummeted from nearly 1,000,000 to a little over 45,000 today, now making up only 1.3 percent of producers, according to USDA Census of Agriculture. This decline is no accident but a result of years of discrimination and unequal opportunities. While the problem is huge, land trusts can play an important part in changing this dynamic. Join Ebonie Alexander, Black Family Land Trust, and Mary Burke, Land Trust Alliance, as they discuss how we got to this point and the current challenges facing African American farmers Participants will also have the opportunity of hearing first-hand from Joe Thompson, a former tobacco farmer and one of the only FRPP easements in the programs history. Filled with real-life stories and practical tips, this workshop is a must for land trusts who want to help families keep their land. This workshop will cover: --What land trusts need to know when reaching out to the African American farming community, including simple strategies to build trust --The nuts and bolts of Heirs’ Property, including why it is a problem and how Maryland passed the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA) --What small acreage landowners can do to keep their land assets as performing assets.

The Native Land Trust Council partners will explain how to work with federally-recognized tribes and native land trusts by bringing representatives to the table and expanding land conservation, protect landscapes, watershed, sacred sites, traditional use areas, and cultural resources through partnerships. NLTC will discuss the application of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge to mitigate climate change (ocean acidification, sea level rise, drought, extreme fire, and wind events, etc.) impacts on their lands

The Perpetuity Principle has been developed over the past 4 years to help guide promising practices and better programming for the K-12 Land Trust Community of Practice. In this workshop participants will explore how every land trust can have an enduring K-12 Perpetuity Program. In March 2020 we launched the Learning Landscapes K-12 Leadership Summit with 15 land trusts from Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Maine, New York, Michigan, Wyoming, Idaho and California. Through the pandemic commitments were made and programs forged. Summits in 2020, 2021, and 2022 were integrated with monthly support sessions to deepen purpose and extend practices. Specific Perpetuity Program Practices include: - Purpose - Perpetuity Atlas: Program Mapping an Enduring Design - Equity, Diversity, Justice, and Inclusion - Collective Evaluation: Logic Model, Theory of Change, and Outcomes & Impacts - Place-based Learning and Stewardship: Climate - Proximity & Frequency: GreenSchoolyards & Near Nature

Western Reserve Land Conservancy is the result of 13 mergers of traditional land trusts that worked in predominantly white, affluent places in Northeast Ohio. In 2008 the organization began a journey to learn how to serve cities and densely urbanized places such as Cleveland, OH. This resulted in the creation of urban programs, and a deep commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice. The mission transformation from exurban to holistic has been incredibly successful. Learn from four leaders how this evolution happened. Lessons learned. Insights gained. Friction encountered and overcome. The racial diversification of our board and staff. How to move from a charitable framework to a reciprocal framework of relationships in urban areas and distressed communities. The session will focus on deep and enduring partnerships with Black-founded and Black-led organizations, Rid All Green Partners and the Khnemu Foundation.

There has been an increase in global awareness around Indigenous People’s stewardship in land and water initiatives, leadership role in climate change and recognition of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge over the past few years. This responsibility has always been given to the Indigenous People since time immemorial, however, many triggering events and the severity of the state of the planet have increased the interest in non-Native communities partnering with Native Communities. Right relationship is key to working with Native Communities and to do so, there must be an understanding of protocols, acknowledgements and a willingness to set things right. This session is an offering to those who want to learn what work needs to be done on an individual and organizational level in order to be able to show up as a good partner to Indigenous Peoples.

This session has been cancelled.

The Mariposa Creek Parkway Initiative is a model for multi benefit community conservation in which the central riparian corridor of a community is the anchor and epicenter of partnership building. This session will describe how a local land trust, Tribe, local government, and arts organizations are working together to address community needs including land preservation, restoration incorporating Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Tribal engagement, housing, recreation, and economic development. The project partners will detail lessons learned including keys to partnership development and addressing pain points. Lear about multi-stakeholder project structure, diversifying financing and resource development. Sierra Foothill Conservancy (SFC) and partners will describe their roles in the planning, acquisition of property, funding structure, and how securing the land enabled a cascade of benefits, including innovative partnership development, restoration (in the form of fuels management, native planting, invasive removal), education, affordable housing, economic vitality, and the arts. The Mariposa Creek Parkway Initiative is a transformational community partnership amongst the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, County of Mariposa, Mariposa Arts Council, community development organizations and non-profit affordable housing developers and the local trust which can serve as a model for the pluralistic future of conservation.