The Network for Landscape Conservation is pleased to hosting a virtual policy forum on Thursday, December 17, to focus on private landowner perspectives and innovations for landscape conservation. This is the second in a series of virtual policy forums that we are hosting, building on our inaugural forum (recording available here) this summer.

Cultivating Landowner Engagement: Successful landscape conservation depends upon the ability to work across multiple organizations and land ownerships to manage for shared conservation values. Private landowners are a key class of ownerships. Working farms, ranches, and forests are often the last best places for intact, fertile, habitable open land. They can provide interconnected permeable landscapes where nature and local communities thrive. They are the cornerstones of both human communities and the ecosystems we all depend on – and in some regions, they are disappearing. Too often, landowner contributions to conservation at landscape scales are overlooked, while some collaboratives struggle with how to better engage private landowners. Lastly, with the ever-changing economic, sociopolitical, and environmental pressures, innovations in public policy are needed to bridge gaps and embrace private landowner participation.

The policy forum will  open with a keynote from Lesli Allison, Executive Director of the Western Landowners Alliance. A panel discussion will follow, moderated by Lynn Scarlett and featuring Sara Parker Pauley, Jimmy Bullock, Adam Kiel, and Jim Lyons. See invitation for more details on the forum and panelists, and be sure to register here to join us on the 17th.