Making the Case: Investing in Collaborative Landscape Conservation & Stewardship
In today’s world, communities are facing the complex, interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, economic development, water security, wildfire, environmental injustice and more. Addressing such challenges that span jurisdictions and sectors requires more than individual projects or organizations working independently; it requires sustained collaboration that brings together the people, communities, and institutions whose decisions and actions shape the future of our landscapes.
Yet the way we fund conservation and stewardship efforts often falls short of what is required for effective and enduring collaboration. Funding tends to flow primarily to discrete projects and on-the-ground implementation, with limited support for the work that is required to align partners, build trust, coordinate across jurisdictions and sectors, engage communities, and sustain shared strategies over time. This lack of resources to invest in “collaborative capacity” is a critical barrier to scaling on-the-ground impact in ways that shift the trajectory on the complex, interconnected challenges facing our landscapes and communities.
Recognizing this as a shared challenge across the field, a group of practitioners and organizations have come together to develop an open-source, living resource: Making the Case, Investing in Collaborative Landscape Conservation & Stewardship. This resource is designed to help practitioners, funders, policymakers, and others communicate why collaborative capacity is critically important and why strengthening it requires intentional, sustained investment.
Download the Collaborative Capacity Case Statement
Drawing on research and practitioner experience, the resource makes the case for sustained funding of the collaborative capacity that enables partners to work across boundaries to achieve shared, lasting outcomes. It can be used directly as is as resource in conversations with funders and decision-makers, and it can be adapted and drawn on for language or ideas when making the case for individual collaboratives. This is a living resource that we may update over time as new knowledge and deepened experience continue to build, but we encourage you to begin to use it as helpful immediately.
We offer this resource with humility, understanding fully that a depth of knowledge and experience exists throughout our shared field, and that many may have additional insights around conveying the importance of collaborative approaches and capacity investments. Above all, our hope is that this resource fosters space for continued conversation and exploration, and we look forward to hearing reactions, feedback, and suggestions for improvement—and especially, your stories about whether and how this resource helps you make the case for investing in collaborative capacity.