View this email in your browser

2024 ILCN Global Congress: Relationships for a Resilient World
Call for proposals now open

October 16-18, 2024 | Quebec, Canada

The International Land Conservation Network (ILCN) is now organizing its fourth Global Congress. The Congress, which marks the ILCN’s 10th anniversary, will be co-hosted by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Canada’s leading national land conservation organization. Experts, practitioners and partners in private and civic land conservation will come together in Quebec in October 2024 to strengthen capacity through peer-to-peer learning, to sustain and nurture meaningful relationships amongst our participants, and to highlight Quebec and Canada’s remarkable conservation achievements for the world.

The 2024 Global Congress program will have an overarching theme of “Relationships for a Resilient World.” Speakers and participants will focus on how areas of primary importance – from securing sustainable financing for conservation to achieving long-term stewardship of conserved areas – depend upon acting collaboratively and relating ethically. Learn more about the Congress on our website or click here.
The ILCN is now accepting proposals for Congress presentations and workshops. For more information and to submit a proposal, please follow the links below.

Request for Proposals       Submit a Proposal

                                         
Featured Content
How a sheep-farming family in Chile transformed a "Useless Bay" into a sanctuary for America's only king penguin colony
 

Hernán Mladinic – ILCN Regional Representative for Latin America
October 30, 2023

The king penguins arrived on the coast of Tierra del Fuego in 2010. There were about 90 of them, coming ashore overnight in Chile’s Bahía Inútil, or Useless Bay, named by 19th century sailors for the brutal elements of wind, rain, and snow that deterred passersby from its shores. The birds’ arrival established the first colony of king penguins in the Americas and inspired a family of sheep farmers to innovate, collaborate, and fight for the survival of an ecosystem.  

Read More
Abandoned Forests: a photo essay and documentary illustrates the sustainable cork-harvesting industry
 


Michele Curel - Independent photographer

An intimate glimpse of the labor and craftsmanship behind an unassuming commodity, Michele Curel's short documentary and accompanying photo essay illustrate the industry behind Catalonia's sustainably managed cork forests. Stripping cork trees of their bark does not harm them but prompts them to absorb more atmospheric carbon to aid in regeneration. The process helps maintain biodiversity, deters forest fires and desertification, and generates economic opportunities for local communities. 

This artist profile is one in an ongoing series highlighting the role creative work plays in connecting people with nature and inspiring a culture of stewardship. If you are an artist whose work is inspired by nature and would like to be featured in a future ILCN newsletter, please reach out to lrobinson@lincolninst.edu. We consider visual fine art, photography, poetry, personal essay, music, and other submissions.

Read More

Notes From the Field
Assessing Land for Climate Resilience
By Mark Anderson 
July, 2023

The Nature Conservancy's Resilient Land Mapping Tool delineates a network covering 35 percent of the United States, connecting climatic gradients across thousands of biodiversity elements and targeting multiple resilient sites in every ecoregion to form the spatial foundation for targeted land protection strategies. 

Read More
Conservation covenants: Innovating for the future
By Cecilia Riebl
November 2, 2023

The 2023 ALCA Private Land Conservation Conference was the first to bring conservationists together in person since 2019. Riebl recaps a widely attended workshop that took a deep dive into conservation covenants and their inclusive application.


Read More
European Union landowners are ready for conservation easements and the ENPLC is responding
Carolina Halevy 
October 26, 2023

In the United States and many other regions, conservation easements are commonplace. In Europe, practitioners are only beginning to discover the vast potential of this versatile land-protection tool. 

Read More
An in-person workshop in Medan, Indonesia, was a milestone for an emerging conservation organization
By Shenmin Liu 
October 30, 2023

The East and Southeast Asia Community Conservation Network launched in 2021. A three-day workshop in October was new territory for the organization that focuses on uplifting IPLCs.


Read More
Unlocking the untapped potential of transboundary conservation in Africa
By Kiragu Mwangi
November 2, 2023

Climate change is particularly devastating for Africa's large, migratory, terrestrial animals. Cross-border collaboration efforts known as Transboundary Conservation Areas are one of their best hopes. 


Read More
A Botswana non-profit is helping to heal fraught human-wildlife relationships through environmental education
By Lily Robinson
July 25, 2023

In rural Botswana—where one of Earth’s last intact elephant populations flourishes—the small environmental nonprofit Elephants for Africa is teaching schoolchildren not to fear the animals.


Read More
Perceptions and Insights: Developing & scaling regenerative agriculture 
By Forum for the Future of Agriculture
October 3, 2023

In anticipation of the final conference of the LIFE ENPLC project, Eurosite released an analysis of regenerative agriculture. It captures solutions for developing and scaling the industry in Europe and beyond and features prominently in a new Call to Action.

Read More
Sustainable Nature Reserves: Guidelines for privately protected areas
By IUCN
May 18, 2022

A nine-step guide from the International Union of Conservation for Nature gives land stewards a pragmatic approach to managing privately protected areas (PPAs). 



Read More

ILCN Updates
Laura Johnson receives 2023 Kingsbury Browne Award

Laura Johnson, ILCN co-founder and former president of Mass Audubon, was honored with the Land Trust Alliance (LTA) Kingsbury Browne Award at the 2023 LTA Rally in Portland, Oregon, in September. Johnson's career as a conservation leader and innovator spans decades and has shaped the trajectory of some of the nation's most impactful land-protection organizations. She was also integral to the birth and early development of the ILCN, beginning in the early 2000s. 



Read More
 
ILCN at the 2023 Regional Conservation Partnership Network Gathering
 

With the support of the ILCN, the Canadian Centre for Land Conservation published a working paper exploring the emergence of regional conservation partnerships (RCPs) in the United States and their potential for advancing land conservation in southern Canada, where nearly 95 percent of land is privately owned. In early November, ILCN Director, Jim Levitt, led a three-day study tour for representatives of the Canadian Centre of Land Conservation and Ontario’s Kawartha Land Trust to gain a field-based understanding of this collaborative conservation approach through visits with several RCPs in New York State and Massachusetts. Over the last several decades, RCPs in the Northeastern United States have protected more than 335,000 acres (135,000 hectares) of land in the region.

Following the study tour, the group attended the Highstead Foundation’s 14th annual RCP Network gathering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Jim Levitt moderated a panel of experts on the emergence and growth of Canadian regional conservation and climate partnerships. The panel, which included several study tour participants, discussed how Canadian conservationists are working across organizational and political divides to protect core areas and corridors in highly-populated southern Canada for biodiversity conservation, climate resilience, and access to nature. Speakers included Phil Huffman, vice president of the Quebec-Labrador Foundation; Mélanie Lelièvre, president of Corridor Appalachien; and the Centre for Land Conservation's John Lounds and Sarah Winterton. 

Read the working paper

Upcoming Events
 Webinar: Opportunities and challenges for voluntary land conservation in Latin America - strengthening our network

The ILCN aims to support voluntary conservation across Latin America by strengthening a Latin American Private Land Conservation Network. This webinar is the first in a series and will discuss the project's primary challenges and opportunities and the role a regional network can play in addressing them. We will analyze the results of a survey assessing participant interest and capacity as well as how a formalized network can serve members. 

This webinar will be conducted in Spanish with English translation. 

Dec 1, 2023 1-2pm (ET) - Virtual 
 
 Webinar: Implementing easements - barriers and opportunities in the European Union

Conservation easements are a flexible and symbiotic tool that has been used to protect millions of acres across the United States and other regions, but Europe has been slow to adopt the mechanism. Join the ILCN and LIFE ENPLC as their teams explore how easements could catalyze private land conservation in the European Union (EU). Experts will present the results of extensive research on existing easements in the EU; assess the success and lessons drawn from those implemented by LIFE ENPLC; and discuss the challenges to popularizing the mechanism across Europe.

Dec 12, 2023 9-10am (ET) - Virtual 

Register

Opportunities
Work with us!

We are seeking a contractor with demonstrated experience in geospatial analysis and software to support geospatial data efforts for the ILCN.

The scope of work for this contract includes: working with non-profit partners in multiple countries to gather, organize, and transform geospatial data and attribute information for privately protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures into formats submissible to the Protected Planet database; supporting a partnership between the ILCN and the Center for Geospatial Solutions at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to test and pilot a related data transformation tool; and working with ILCN staff on the development of an ILCN StoryMap in ArcGIS.

The contract period is from December 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, with a minimum commitment of 16 hours per week. Interested individuals should submit a resume, a letter describing the relevance of  their skills and experience to the scope of work outlined above, and information regarding their hourly rate to Chandni Navalkha at cnavalkha@lincolninst.edu by November 17, 2023.
Call for Creative Content
 
The ILCN is looking for submissions of artistic work with a connection to land and land protection to feature on our website and in upcoming newsletters. We are open to poetry, short stories, personal essays, visual art, music, and more. Submissions can be sent to Lily Robinson at lrobinson@lincolninst.edu. Please include a short description of the relationship your piece shares with land, nature, or the environment. 
We are excited to share stories from ILCN members. If you have a successful conservation initiative, story, event, or webinar to share, then please contact us at ILCN@lincolninst.edu.
The mission of the International Land Conservation Network is to connect organizations and people around the world that are accelerating voluntary private and civic sector action that protects and stewards land and water resources. 

Learn more at landconservationnetwork.org.
ILCN Website
Email Us
Copyright © 2022 International Land Conservation Networks, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
ILCN@lincolninst.edu

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.