Shoshanna Dean

Connecting the Northeast through land, water, and collaboration

July 16, 2024

I was lucky enough to attend the first ever Northeastern North America / Turtle Island Connectivity Summit (NENAM) in Montréal / Tiohtià:ke, Canada, hosted by our friends at the Quebec Labrador Foundation, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, and the Staying Connected Initiative. The Salazar Center’s efforts focus on the continental scale, so it was especially exciting to attend a conference where the attendees were collectively focused on their impact on a shared and beloved landscape. The spirit of the gathering was centered on transcending borders and sectors to recognize that humans, plants, and wildlife need connected landscapes to thrive.

NENAM brought together practitioners, government representatives, agencies, tribal representatives, and funders to create a regional roadmap to better understand their challenges and achieve a resilient and connected Northeastern North America.

The Salazar Center also wants to protect this ecologically diverse and important geography. We plan to hold our second Peregrine Accelerator for Conservation Impact – a tailored training, mentorship, and peer-learning program designed to identify and strengthen innovative conservation projects – in the North Atlantic Transboundary region.

This region encompasses seven U.S. states and three Canadian provinces. The landscape has even been identified by The Nature Conservancy as one of their four globally significant core areas, due to the region’s critical potential to conserve biodiversity, act as a carbon sink, and provide resilience in the face of climate change. From the Atlantic coast to the Adirondacks and Appalachians, a host of plant and animal species rely on an intact and conserved landscape to survive. The collaborative work being done by the organizations at NENAM is a vital step to ensuring species can move between habitats, particularly in the face of a changing climate that is pushing many to higher elevations and latitudes.

Takeaways

I learned so much from this impressive group. These are a few of the takeaways that will stick with me from NENAM:

1. Indigenous nations are leading the way

Indigenous groups are responsible for stewarding 80% of the world’s biodiversity, despite making up only 5% of the world’s population. Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge is continuously proving to be critical for protecting intact landscapes. The tribes and First Nations of the northeast are leading a multitude of impressive efforts to establish Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs), restore free flowing rivers, and reignite the traditional stewardship of their ancestral lands. For too long the conservation community kept Indigenous groups out of critical conversations, and the time is now to elevate and collaborate with those who have stewarded the land for time immemorial. A particularly poignant moment was when Elder Dr. Albert D. Marshall Sr., Moose Clan of the Mi’kmaw Nation, Mi’ma’ki encouraged us all to “walk together with the uniqueness we have been given” when doing this critical work.

2. Conservation wins when different sectors come together

One aspect of NENAM that particularly impressed me was the diversity of sectors represented. The audience comprised transportation agencies, public works departments, environmental nonprofits, tribal organizations, state and municipal leaders, landscape scale collaboratives, and more. This diverse group of representatives meant that the discussions, particularly in the breakout groups, yielded thoughts and insights that were innovative and integrative of the many sectors represented. I am excited to see the final roadmap because it will reflect a multitude of ideas and perspectives historically kept out of the landscape connectivity conversation.

Panel on the work different organizations and entities are doing to enhance landscape connectivity efforts in the region and beyond.

3. We need innovative financing and funding

It is no secret that conservation remains one of the least funded sectors, despite the critical benefits and risk-reduction that nature provides to humans. The global $700 billion financing gap is one of the starkest examples of this, demonstrating that we can no longer afford to do business as usual when it comes to funding conservation. I was excited to hear examples of how leaders in this region are working to explore new ways of funding this critical work. From bonds for nature to cultural ecosystem service valuation, there is a need for a diverse and innovative mix of public and private financing to successfully pay for the work that needs to be done.
My colleague, Catie Boehmer, recently attended the Conservation Finance Network annual bootcamp. She shares her thoughts about the state of conservation funding here.

4. Working at all scales is critical to achieve connectivity

From the smallest wildlife crossing to a dam removal, to a thousand-acre forest reserve, we need to be thinking of landscape connectivity across all scales. This was made evident by the diversity of work that was shared throughout the summit. And importantly, a connected landscape can work to scale up solutions that are successful on the ground by sharing best practices across stakeholders. When we add it all up, landscape connectivity is the result of a multitude of projects that collectively connect and enhance natural space for humans and wildlife. Because of this, projects of every size are necessary to achieve our goals!

5. Borders are man-made

Wildlife and humans have existed without politically designated borders for millennia and will continue to do so into the future. As the climate changes dramatically and pushes species out of their natural ranges, we must ensure that habitats exist to support their movement. A deer, bear, bird, or bug is not going to care whether they are in the United States or Canada, they will only care if they have the resources needed to support their shift in range. Collaboration across these borders is critical for the ensured survival of us all. Similarly, Indigenous nations such as the Wabanaki have been separated by federal borders. They are still connected by their shared knowledge, traditions, and stewardship of the region, and demonstrate that borders are truly what we make of them.

Final thoughts

It is exciting to see the impressive collaboration towards a shared vision of what connectivity means for the Northeast Atlantic region. I am personally thrilled to be bringing the Peregrine Accelerator to the region in 2025, knowing that there is a strong base of committed and visionary practitioners working to build resilience for the region. We all have our work set out for us to meet global challenges for climate and biodiversity, and the NENAM summit proved that together, we just might get there.

Emily Barbo

Symposium 2023 Cross-cutting Theme: Learn, Monitor, Adapt

May 9, 2024

The Salazar Center’s fifth International Symposium on Conservation Impact focused on how to achieve a nature-positive future together, to catapult our communities towards durable, high-impact outcomes for climate, biodiversity, and human well-being.

We brought together diverse thought leaders to share ideas and best practices for moving beyond individual pilot projects to build lasting systems change for nature and communities across North America. Our two-day dialogue elevated the interconnectedness of biodiversity loss and climate change, both in terms of their impacts and solutions, while highlighting how a nature-based approach can enhance the resilience of both our planet and society. By design, we assembled speakers with varied expertise and backgrounds to showcase the breadth of differing, and sometimes contrarian, opinions and ideas related to our theme. Our intent with this approach was to facilitate our attendees’ ability to deepen their understanding of the issues and perhaps challenge their perspectives.

The 2023 Symposium Synthesis Report summarizes five cross-cutting themes that emerged from the Symposium, as well as key takeaways from each session. The themes reflect ideas, needs, and opportunities raised multiple times by speakers or attendees. Like the interconnectedness of biodiversity and climate, each theme is also connected to the next. Together, they help illuminate potential shared pathways to enrich biodiversity and build long-term, stable societies and healthy economies across North America.

Don’t have time to read the full report? No problem! We’ve broken it down so you can focus on what resonates the most right now.

Cross-cutting Theme: Learn, Monitor, Adapt

“Are we doing the right thing?” – Lauren Oakes

Regenerating healthy biodiversity and building climate resilience is hard. Many of us put enormous amounts of energy, time, and money into creating positive change while experiencing tremendous uncertainty around our impact. We must pause and ask ourselves, ‘Are we doing the right thing?’ The lack of metrics and monitoring to support our decision-making is a barrier to answering this question. We need to identify solutions that are effective and lead to durable outcomes. Unfortunately, we are not tracking a common set of metrics to help us collectively answer the question, “Are we getting it right?” The inherent complexity of biodiversity makes a common set of metrics difficult to achieve, unlike so many of our climate solutions which are largely tied to CO2 equivalents. Not surprisingly, we have yet to fully define approaches to track and measure the suite of co-benefits associated with NBS. In order to get there, “Maybe it is less about right and wrong and more about striving for better as people learn from the challenges and successes of their work as it unfolds over time”, as suggested by Lauren Oakes.

Without consistent tracking of sufficient and comparable metrics over time, it is difficult to implement effective adaptive management programs within a project or at a larger policy scale. This gap limits our ability to appropriately advance effective approaches and techniques. Adaptive management and its associated monitoring need to be planned strategically from the beginning of a project and sustained throughout its life. Conversely, speakers noted that effective long-term monitoring can take time to produce results, which conflicts with the urgency to invest in and implement widespread solutions.

To improve adaptive management, we need a clearer understanding of what success looks like in terms of nature-based solutions and their outcomes. Developing a consensus around a common set of performance metrics related to NBS, biodiversity, and climate is required to ensure nature-positive outcomes. The full suite of NBS co-benefits is still poorly measured and understood. One of the major barriers to effective application is the lack of interest from government or philanthropic funders in supporting sustained multi-year monitoring programs. This limits the capacity of organizations to build long-term assessment and learning into their planning processes from the beginning.

Western monitoring requirements create barriers to Indigenous communities

In seeking to improve and sustain the use of metrics, monitoring, and adaptive management, speakers elevated the tension between conventional Western and TEK approaches. TEK is often built and shared around storytelling and non-quantitative measures, conflicting with conventional Western metrics and performance indicators. The limited funding available for monitoring typically prioritizes quantitative performance indicators. This creates an obstacle for Indigenous peoples’ access to critical funding for projects. Maybe more importantly, it also prevents the development of human capacity and cross-cultural trust-building. As a result, speakers called upon the conservation community to recognize and respect that Indigenous peoples do not need Western science and data to validate TEK. We must work together to fund and co-create models of support that are more respectful and inclusive of Indigenous ways of knowing.

Climate solutions must be nature-positive solutions

Another important concept emerging throughout Symposium discussions was the need for intentional planning to avoid potential conflicts between climate and biodiversity solutions. Climate change is often seen as more urgent than biodiversity loss, partly because climate threats and solutions receive better-developed messaging and measurements than fractured ecosystem services and functions. Promoting and incorporating nature-based solutions can help balance this tension. However, there is still a need for policies that fully analyze and prioritize the impacts of climate solutions to ensure no unintended consequences for biodiversity, ecosystems, and communities. We cannot let the sense of urgency around solving climate change over the long term supersede concerns about how those strategies or projects can negatively impact efforts and goals for protecting biodiversity and ensuring positive, equitable outcomes for communities.

Download the full 2023 Symposium Synthesis Report

Emily Barbo

Symposium 2023 Cross-cutting Theme: Fostering Relationships

May 2, 2024

Don’t have time to read the full report? No problem! We’ve broken it down so you can focus on what resonates the most right now.

Cross-cutting Theme: Fostering Relationships

“Progress moves at the speed of trust.” – James Rattling Leaf

The value of rooting our climate and biodiversity work in relationship-building reverberated powerfully throughout the Symposium. Despite the urgency of the climate and biodiversity crises, speakers encouraged the conservation community to slow down and intentionally build meaningful relationships with partners and leaders from across sectors and organizations, and particularly with the frontline and Indigenous communities who are central to this work. Creating an effective and truly inclusive NBS community necessitates a deeper understanding of and ability to communicate with all those touched by the biodiversity and climate crises to develop shared values and a common language. For North America to reach a nature-positive future, we must lead with community and create solutions built on a foundation of trust.

The knowledge and understanding of frontline communities and Indigenous peoples are foundational to building successful strategies for addressing climate and biodiversity risks and implementing effective nature-based solutions. Community-driven data is as important as the data derived from conventional Western science, and achieving a nature-positive future will be difficult without fully incorporating these diverse sources of expertise.

As we work towards building better relationships within and across the conservation field, several speakers highlighted the value of leaning into discomfort. Accommodating difficult conversations will help us reimagine the systems driving the climate and biodiversity crises. Globally, Indigenous peoples manage 80% of the remaining intact biodiversity. This is both a challenge and an opportunity to build bridges that connect Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and practices with the culture and systems of the dominant society. Perhaps we should reframe thinking about NBS as thinking about Indigenous-based solutions. However, if we are to do that, we must first resolve the roots of conflict between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples through a process of reconciliation.

Ethical Space is a key mechanism to enable successful reconciliation, which provides the means for respectful government-to-government dialogue and to deeply “understand what is important to be understood… and create something new.”

Download the full 2023 Symposium Synthesis Report

Emily Barbo

Symposium Speaker: James Rattling Leaf

September 7, 2023

The Salazar Center is proud to announce that James Rattling Leaf, Principal, Wolakota Lab LLC will be joining us in Denver, Colorado for the fifth-annual International Symposium on Conservation Impact.

James serves as a guide and inspiration to organizations to work more effectively with Indigenous Peoples for a more equitable world in his role as a global Indigenous Consultant and Principal of the Wolakota Lab, LLC. He has over 25 years’ working with the U.S. federal government, higher education institutions and non-profits. He specializes in developing programs that utilize the interface between Indigenous people’s traditional knowledge and western science. He sees a greater vision of human knowledge that incorporates the many insights of human cultures and provides a context for our better understanding of the planet and the world.

James is a founding member of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Indigenous Alliance that was established at GEO Week 2019 in Canberra, Australia to foster a continued, effective, respectful, and reciprocal relationship with GEO and representatives of indigenous communities from around the world. He was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and is a citizen of the Oceti Sakowin, Sicangu Lakota. His higher education comes from Sinte Gleska University.

Resources

What is Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Why Does it Matter?

Emily Barbo

Symposium Speaker: Gwen Bridge

June 20, 2023

The Salazar Center is proud to announce that Gwen Bridge will be joining us in Denver, Colorado for the fifth-annual International Symposium on Conservation Impact.

Gwen is a member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation and has been working for over 20 years with First Nations, all levels of government, and the private and nonprofit sectors, across North America, developing relationships and strategies that advance reconciliation. She has been negotiating initiatives and advising on strategy and policy that recognize and implement Indigenous Knowledge, such as in the proposed South Okanagan Similkameen National Park Reserve.

Gwen is advising the BC government on how to better consider indigenous knowledge in collaborative land use planning and forestry related climate change considerations. Support to local governments includes developing strategies and principles for becoming “Cities of Reconciliation” and advising on climate change policy and economic development engagement strategies. Indigenous-led conservation focuses recently include the smelqmix Protected Area and caribou habitat conservation advancement in the territory of the Okanagan Nation Alliance. Advancing an understanding of the ecological, economic and equity-based partnership mechanisms to support our collective reconciliation agenda through training is a recent focus. Other clients include First Nations and First Nation organizations, Parks Canada, US National Parks Service, National Geographic Society, other nonprofits, regional and municipal governments including Metro Vancouver, other consulting firms, the University of Washington, Blue Quills University, BC Ministries of: Environment, Indigenous Relationships and Reconciliation, Forests, and Land, Water and Resource Stewardship.

Gwen is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Forestry at UBC. Gwen has a Master of Science in Forest Hydrology from the University of Alberta.