Charting an Uncertain Future for National Heritage Areas
March 5, 2022
To provide observations and information on the emerging fields of landscape scale conservation, heritage preservation, and sustainable community development.
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History and heritage are central to the work of large landscape conservation. Yet, a large part of this “work” often goes unexplored – the story of work itself. Understanding how people shaped a place through their labor and how that place, in turn, shaped culture and community, is key to telling the story of a landscape.
This is an exceptional time when ambitions for landscape scale conservation have come together with increased federal funding and supportive national policies. However, it is not time to take a victory lap. Now is the time to rise to the challenge of matching money, projects and partners to take advantage of these exceptional opportunities. The time has come to put into action at scale all the strategies developed by the collaborative conservation approach.
Passage of the Fiscal Year 2022 budget is stalled in Congress. What are some items we are watching as the process unfolds this fall and what thoughts do you have on the administration’s proposals?
The origin story of the landscape scale conservation movement has yet to be told. However, in the United States, there has been a long tradition of managing fish and wildlife habitat with the understanding that species preservation required the conservation of wider ecosystems. Today the movement has received reinforcement from the nonprofit sector organizations such as the Network for Landscape Conservation.
In January 2021, the Biden administration announced a plan to protect 30 percent of the country’s land and water by 2030. The effort, which is global in scale, has been dubbed 30×30. History, especially the recent past, can offer some promising lessons to help guide the new campaign.
History and heritage are central to the work of large landscape conservation. Yet, a large part of this “work” often goes unexplored – the story of work itself. Understanding how people shaped a place through their labor and how that place, in turn, shaped culture and community, is key to telling the story of a landscape.
This is an exceptional time when ambitions for landscape scale conservation have come together with increased federal funding and supportive national policies. However, it is not time to take a victory lap. Now is the time to rise to the challenge of matching money, projects and partners to take advantage of these exceptional opportunities. The time has come to put into action at scale all the strategies developed by the collaborative conservation approach.
Passage of the Fiscal Year 2022 budget is stalled in Congress. What are some items we are watching as the process unfolds this fall and what thoughts do you have on the administration’s proposals?
The origin story of the landscape scale conservation movement has yet to be told. However, in the United States, there has been a long tradition of managing fish and wildlife habitat with the understanding that species preservation required the conservation of wider ecosystems. Today the movement has received reinforcement from the nonprofit sector organizations such as the Network for Landscape Conservation.
In January 2021, the Biden administration announced a plan to protect 30 percent of the country’s land and water by 2030. The effort, which is global in scale, has been dubbed 30×30. History, especially the recent past, can offer some promising lessons to help guide the new campaign.