Global Landscape Stewards Becomes a Working Group of the ILCN
Global Landscape Stewards (GLS) is an initiative dedicated to weaving a diverse network of stewardship practitioners worldwide. Founded by a group of stewardship practitioners based in the western United States, our exchanges serve to accelerate the pace and amplify the impact of land stewardship globally and locally.
The creation of GLS was inspired by the impact of international peer learning fostered by networks such as the ILCN on our work. We are pleased to announce that GLS is joining the ILCN as its first working group. By aligning and integrating with ILCN, we look forward to strengthening our connections and developing exchanges with stewardship practitioners and policymakers around the globe.
Background
In fall 2022, we held the first GLS exchange in eastern Australia, where we met with a range of non-governmental, government, philanthropic, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups. Through three weeks of meetings, conversations, events, and time together we built relationships, catalyzed connections, and identified a range of best practices we could take back to our home landscapes.
Post-exchange interviews revealed that this experience had profound effects on the individuals involved and their organizations. Not only did it create new connections, it also tangibly enhanced our place-based stewardship efforts. Relationships built during our time together have continued to flourish through virtual meetings, webinars, rich conversations, and an in-person visit to the United States by one of our Australian colleagues.
Building upon the success of the exchange in Australia, the GLS steering committee is now exploring other geographies and opportunities for stewardship exchanges.
About the Working Group
The GLS Working Group is envisioned as a forum for action to help realize the group’s broader vision for global stewardship peer exchange. The working group will play a critical role in shaping future programming and exchanges based on emerging topics, issues, needs, and/or opportunities in the field.
This includes making connections in a particular geography; identifying virtual and place-based program exchange opportunities; and focusing themes/topics to help define the scope of the exchanges. In addition to in-person exchange, the working group will maintain connections with key groups and individuals through a broader program of exchange based on virtual meetings, webinars, global conferences, and more. Our ability to act as a throughline across specific regional experiences will help more closely knit the global web of connection and learning over time.
Looking Ahead
The work of GLS is highly relevant to the ILCN’s global efforts in its land stewardship and management focus area. We look forward to working together with ILCN to advance our respective and closely-related strategies by fostering knowledge exchange and connecting practitioners working across diverse landscapes to support outcome-driven collaboration.
We look forward to sharing updates about our work together in coming months. For more information, please visit our website here or contact Boo Curry at bcurry@stewardshipnetwork.org.
