The North Atlantic Transboundary Landscape—home to over 30 million people in the U.S. and Canada and spanning seven states and four provinces—is characterized by rich biological and cultural diversity, with major watersheds like the St. Lawrence, Connecticut, Hudson, and Penobscot Rivers; renowned natural features such as the Northern Appalachian, Adirondack, Green, and White Mountains; and more than 50 sovereign Tribal and First Nations whose traditional territories cross these lands and waters. And, despite being a highly fragmented region, both in terms of ecosystems and jurisdiction, it presents significant potential to increase landscape connectivity, reverse biodiversity loss, and achieve targets like 30×30 in the region.
In 2025, the Peregrine Accelerator program will help place-based groups in this landscape realize this potential by investing in their ideas for new and different conservation solutions, and the Salazar Center, along with a diverse group of advisors and partners from across the region, is proud to announce its second cohort of Accelerator participants.
Cold Hollow to Canada
Cold Hollow to Canada maintains ecosystem integrity, biological diversity, and forest resiliency throughout the Cold Hollow to Canada region, with a focus on community-led stewardship and the conservation of our working landscape in the face of a changing climate.
Project Title: Strategic Forestland Conservation and Community Resiliency in Northern Vermont
Overview: Through a grassroots and welcoming community-based coalition, Cold Hollow to Canada seeks to maintain and build enduring partnerships to protect and steward our corner of the Northern Forest for people and wildlife for generations to come.
Community Forests International
Community Forests International works in Canada and Zanzibar to protect and restore forests, help communities adapt to climate change, build economic prosperity, and champion social equality.
Project Title: The Wabanaki Resilient Forests Fund
Project Partners: The Wolastoqey Nation in New Brunswick (WNNB), Mi’gmawe’l tplu’taqnn Inc. (MTI), Fort Folly First Nation (FFFN) Habitat Recovery, Passamaquoddy Recognition Group Inc. (PRGI), and Nature Trust of New Brunswick (Nature Trust)
Overview: Over the past year, the Wabanaki Land Back Partnership has secured and protected over 10,000 acres of endangered Wabanaki forest in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for Indigenous cultural uses, climate values, and biodiversity preservation. Now, the partners propose to create a Wabanaki Resilient Forests Fund — a stewardship fund to provide an ongoing, sustainable source of maintenance funds to support culturally-appropriate and climate-focused stewardship of these jointly conserved lands for the next seven generations.
Conseil régional de l’environnement Chaudière-Appalaches
The mission of CRECA is to promote consultation, collaboration and the sharing of expertise between civil society stakeholders in the environmental field.
Project Title: Inter-regional connectivity in southern Quebec: working across municipal boundaries for long term results
Project Partners: Conseil régional de l’environnement de l’Estrie and Conseil régional de l’environnement du Centre-du-Québec
Overview: CRECA and partners will use a concerted inter-regional approach to identify core habitat and corridors in a high priority connectivity area in Canada and ultimately co-create a connectivity Master plan that includes a prioritization of conservation actions and funding possibilities.
Ecology Action Centre
The Ecology Action Centre acts as watchdog, convener, mobilizer and incubator. The Centre engages community to create systemic change in the face of urgent, complex environmental issues.
Project Title: CoastCheck
Overview: Less than 15% of coastlines remain intact globally. Like coastlines around the world, Nova Scotia’s 13,000km of diverse coastal ecosystems face a multitude of threats from coastal development to the impacts of climate change, affecting the health of ecosystems and wellbeing of the communities that rely on them. In the absence of unifying coastal protection legislation and a lacking panoptic understanding of the extent or rate of degradation of coastal ecosystems, much remains to be understood about the state of Nova Scotia’s coastlines. The CoastCheck pilot project proposes a community based citizen-science coastal monitoring initiative to better understand how and why our coasts are changing so we may work to safeguard them for future generations.
Housatonic Valley Association
Follow the Forest protects and connects forests and promotes the safe passage of wildlife from the Hudson Valley to Canada. Housatonic Valley Association is the lead organization of this Accelerator team.
Project Title: Follow the Forest: Leveraging Community Science for Conservation Action
Project Partners: Staying Connected Initiative, Litchfield Hills Greenprint Collaborative, and The Nature Conservancy
Overview: Traditional land conservation in southern New England and eastern New York has not effectively incorporated habitat connectivity, and in order to do so requires local, place-based knowledge to inform effective solutions. The Follow the Forest Initiative, led by the Housatonic Valley Association, in collaboration with numerous partners, integrates place-based community science with high-level connectivity modeling to inform strategic land conservation and restore terrestrial connectivity. We will create pathways for further deploying our community science tool and lay the framework for conservation, restoration, and infrastructure adaptation.
KitiganZibi Anishinabeg
Project Title: Eel and diadromous fish recovery in the Northeast
Project Partners: Canadian Wildlife Federation, St. Francis Xavier University, SUNY ESF, and Chris Bowser from Cornell University
Overview: Fish populations and aquatic environments experience unique challenges due to legacy contaminants and stressors. Anguilla rostrata—American eels—are a treasured and valued species with cultural, biological, and spiritual significance to native nations across the Northeast. Eels and other diadromous fishes have experienced massive decline resulting from imposed habitat alteration and other factors. This project will catalyze the leadership of Indigenous nations in responding to threats and pressures experienced by eels and their related habitats by utilizing components of Indigenous governance and relationality.
Wele’k Pemjajika’q Siknikt – Côtes en santé N.-B. – Healthy Coasts NB
Wele’k Pemjajika’q Siknikt – Côtes en santé N.-B. – Healthy Coasts NB is a partnership of organizations who are passionate about supporting win-win projects that protect species of conservation concern, promote community resilience to climate change, and support a coastal way of life. Nature NB is the lead organization of this Accelerator team.
Project Title: Wele’k Pemjajika’q Siknikt – Côtes en santé N.-B. – Healthy Coasts NB
Project Partners: Anqotum Resource Management, Birds Canada, Nature Trust of New Brunswick, and Nature Conservancy of Canada
Overview: Wele’k Pemjajika’q Siknikt – Côtes en santé N.-B. – Healthy Coasts NB will expand their program to New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy to advance coastal conservation work in the unceded territory of the Mi`kmaq peoples in Eastern New Brunswick.
Schoodic Institute
The Schoodic Institute inspires science, learning, and community for a changing world. The Institute is Acadia National Park’s primary partner in science and education.
Project Title:
Project Partners: Wabanaki Youth and Science, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Sipayik Climate Resilience Committee, Friends of Acadia, and The Nature Conservancy
Overview: The Maine Tidal Marsh Restoration Network (MTMRN) is a state-wide effort to restore salt marsh biodiversity, provide carbon storage and coastal protection, and protect Wabanaki cultural resources. However, even though salt marsh remediation work will impact important Wabanaki cultural landscapes and sweetgrass resources, Wabanaki people remain underrepresented and are rarely included within the communication and information sharing. The Schoodic Institute and partners will develop a roadmap to support the leadership and engagement of the Wabanaki people in MTMRN through education, outreach, and integration of shared project outcomes to mitigate further harm.