September 30, 2020
Leadership Transition at the Network
Our founding director, Emily Bateson, is moving on to new adventures from the Network. This will be a major transition for the organization. Emily has been our passionately committed and inspirational leader for the last five years. She played a key role in moving the Network from an idea to a functioning organization that is driving innovation in collaborative landscape-scale conservation in North America. Today, the Network has more than 200 institutional partners and nearly 4,000 individual members. During Emily’s tenure, the Network carried out the first national survey of landscape conservation initiatives; convened a National Forum and released the associated Pathways Forward report; launched the Catalyst Fund; and focused attention on diversity, equity, and inclusion as pillars of landscape conservation. Please read this letter of commendation from our Coordinating Committee honoring Emily’s contribution to the Network and the field of landscape conservation. Regretting that we can’t gather in person, we raise a virtual toast to Emily and all that she has achieved!
As we navigate this transition, the entire Coordinating Committee is stepping forward to engage deeply in envisioning the Network’s future, one that builds on the remarkable growth of the last five years to position the Network as the central hub for connecting practitioners to ideas and innovations—and to one another—as we all work to accelerate the pace of landscape conservation across the nation. Our work is more important now than ever. Ernest Cook has agreed to serve as interim Director, and can be reached via email here. Please be in touch if you have thoughts or reflections on the Network and how it can support and advance your work in your own landscapes—we look forward to hearing from you.