Resources Library

Enactment of the Clean Air Act (CAA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), three of the primary federal environmental laws, all coincided with the height of fire suppression and exclusion in the United States. These laws fail to acknowledge or account for the importance of fire in many fire-adapted and fire-dependent ecosystems, particularly in the American west, or the imperative for fire restoration to improve resiliency and reduce wildfire risk as identified by western science and Indigenous knowledge. We review the statutory and regulatory provisions of these federal laws to identify how the existing policy framework misaligns with the unique role of fire in ecosystems and with Tribal sovereignty, identify specific barriers and disincentives to beneficial fire use, and propose specific policy reforms.ion/details here.

Historical and contemporary policies and practices, including the suppression of lightning-ignited fires and the removal of intentional fires ignited by Indigenous peoples, have resulted in over a century of fire exclusion across many of the USA’s landscapes. Within many designated wilderness areas, this intentional exclusion of fire has clearly altered ecological processes and thus constitutes a fundamental and ubiquitous act of trammeling. Through a framework that recognizes four orders of trammeling, we demonstrate the substantial, long-term, and negative effects of fire exclusion on the natural conditions of fire-adapted wilderness ecosystems. In order to untrammel more than a century of fire exclusion, the implementation of active programs of intentional burning may be necessary across some wilderness landscapes. We also suggest greater recognition and accommodation of Indigenous cultural burning, a practice which Tribes used to shape and maintain many fire-adapted landscapes for thousands of years before Euro-American colonization, including landscapes today designated as wilderness. Human-ignited fire may be critical to restoring the natural character of fire-adapted wilderness landscapes and can also support ecocultural restoration efforts sought by Indigenous peoples.

The climate crisis has exacerbated many ecological and cultural problems including wildfire and drought vulnerability, biodiversity declines, and social justice and equity. While there are many concepts of social and ecological resilience, the exemplar practices of Indigenous stewardship are recognized in having sustained Indigenous peoples and their countries for millennia and past climate change events. California has been at the crossroads of many of these issues, and the historic and current contributions of Indigenous peoples to addressing these provide an excellent study of ecocultural stewardship and leadership by Indigenous peoples to achieve climate resilience.

Enter resource descrFrom 2024 to 2026, the CLSN will focus its efforts on the three areas. These multi-faceted, interrelated, and emergent topics build upon our strengths while allowing us to continue to be nimble and adaptive to opportunities and needs that arise from our community of practice.

• Connecting collaborative practitioners in ways that inform, equip, and empower; 
• Advancing solutions to systemic barriers that limit collaborative stewardship action; 
• Supporting the landscape stewardship movement that leads with equity, justice, and inclusion

Specific objectives and activities under each focal area are detailed in this report.iption/details here.

We are at a pivotal inflection point for addressing landscape scale challenges in the United States and across the globe. From climate change and land-use planning to water management and environmental justice, complex and increasingly urgent issues cross political boundaries, scales, demographics, and sectors. Collaboration is paramount for successfully addressing these issues, and practitioners, funders, and researchers all have a role to play in finding and implementing landscape-scale solutions. However, even when diverse groups work together, success isn’t guaranteed.

Collaborative conservation and stewardship offer effective approaches for addressing complex challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental justice. They also provide innovative ways to fill governance gaps and make inclusive decisions in situations for which we have no sufficient structure, processes, or abilities. However, in order to effectively allocate scarce resources, we need to better understand how to invest in the “collaborative capacity” that sustains collaborative groups, partnerships, and networks.

This study provides an analysis of what collaborative capacity is and how it leads to improved conservation and stewardship outcomes based on expert perspectives gathered from in-depth interviews and focus groups with practitioners, leaders, and funders across the United States.

We present a framework that illustrates the collaborative capacity elements that are necessary and fundable, as well as a list of activities they enable. We share the reasons why consistent, long-term investment in these elements is needed. We emphasize the contextual factors that affect collaboration so that these investments are made in the right places, at the right times, and in the right ways to achieve their potential. We end with a set of recommendations directed toward practitioners, funders, and researchers that will help align their efforts, making them more effective, efficient, and able to achieve durable outcomes.

On August 10, 2023, we were joined by four rising leaders in California to continue highlighting efforts statewide that center equity, justice, Tribal sovereignty, and inclusion in the stewardship of land, water, and communities:

• Barbara Camacho Garcia, Grassroots Ecology
• Benjamin Chang, California Climate Action Corps
• Ivette Torres, The People's Collective for Environmental Justice
• Irene Takako Farr, Better World Group

This series is hosted by the CLSN’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Roundtable for Healing Severed Connections. This lunchtime conversation was moderated by JEDI Roundtable member Laurel Wee.

The Outdoors for All strategy charts progress on equitable outdoor access to date, highlights work underway, and identifies additional actions to realize the promise of a California for All. This strategy outlines pathways that government, community organizations, philanthropy, private sector, and residents across California can take together to continue increasing access to the outdoors and nature.

Indigenous cultures have stewarded nature for thousands of years but today's conservation approaches often sideline this knowledge – to the detriment of stewardship efforts, Indigenous peoples and the planet. In the first of a 2-part webinar series, we hear from speakers from the U.S. and Australia about the dynamics of successful partnerships between conservation organizations and Indigenous groups, both in the management of conservation lands and in Indigenous handbacks of conservation lands. The key focus is on the ‘how’: How to partner with and support Indigenous-led conservation, including best practices, strategies for reciprocity, and turning listening into action.

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, in partnership with the Network for Landscape Conservation and the University of Montana, has released a working paper exploring the role of large landscape conservation in providing nature-based climate solutions. 

Land conservation addresses climate change both by mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and by helping human and natural communities adapt to the changes caused by global warming. To be most effective, land conservation strategies dealing with climate change need to be implemented at scale and typically require collaboration among many partners who need to work together to overcome obstacles like political boundaries, uncoordinated plans, competition for funding and cultural conflicts.

This paper examines the experience of collaborative partnerships in dealing with climate change. The examination draws from a recent online survey of landscape conservation partnerships, interviews with over 40 practitioners, web research, and email communications. This paper presents practices that appear to be most effective and makes recommendations that can accelerate and broaden the benefits of landscape conservation and restoration in meeting climate goals.