The Resilient Landscapes Initiative (2013–2020) Protecting the Places That Endure

The Resilient Landscapes Initiative (2013–2020) Protecting the Places That Endure February 4, 2021 The Resilient Landscapes Initiative Protecting the Places That Endure Made possible through the generous support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation 1350 Broadway, Suite 201 New York, NY 10018 Email: [email protected] www.openspaceinstitute.org Table of Contents 01 Introduction 02 New Paradigm for Conservation 03 Fund’s Goals and Strategies 07 Major Accomplishments 13 Power of Planning 15 Rising to the Climate Challenge 18 Capital Grant Projects 22 Catalyst Grants Green woodland orchid in Lost Lake Longleaf Preserve, North Carolina INTRODUCTION Resilient Landscapes The Open Space Institute (OSI) has a long history of protecting land in Initiative Advisory eastern North America. Beginning in New York, our home and where we Committees have conserved 151,000 acres of land since 1974, OSI has helped to protect 2.3 million acres of land from Quebec to Florida. We’ve safeguarded land for Northeast wildlife habitat, water quality, recreational access, and wildlife adaptation to Susan Arnold climate change. As a conservation finance intermediary, we have made $122 Vice President of Conservation million in grants and loans to partner land trusts to protect two million acres of Appalachian Mountain Club land in the eastern United States and Canada. In recent years, we’ve expanded Andrew Milliken outside New York to directly save significant, complex, and large-scale tracts Coordinator, North Atlantic up and down eastern North America. Landscape Conservation Cooperative With the world facing both a climate emergency and a biodiversity crisis, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service OSI launched the Resilient Landscapes Initiative in 2013 to help tackle these interrelated issues. In doing so, the Initiative synthesized and applied the George Fenwick emerging science of climate resilience to help answer an eternal question facing President conservationists: how can we be assured that protecting the lands where plants American Bird Conservancy and animals live today will support them in the future? In other words, as the Dennis Davidson climate warms and plants and animals shift northward and upward, how can Former Director land conservation maintain species diversity over the long-term? New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Owing to a decade of scientific research from The Nature Conservancy and Green Acres Program their colleagues, we know lands most likely to support wildlife have large Dr. Joshua Ginsberg networks of interconnected and intact habitats. They also feature a variety of President geology types and land formations, such as slopes, cliffs, valleys, and ravines. Cary Institute for Ecosystem Such diverse places allow plants and animals to move within and between Studies and OSI Trustee microclimates, better enabling wildlife to withstand an uncertain climate. Finally, climate-resilient lands not only protect wildlife, but also provide Southeast human communities natural defenses against flood, drought, and other risks. Benic M. “Bruz” Clark III Thanks to the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and President with support from Jane’s Trust, the Lyndhurst, Benwood, and William Penn The Lyndhurst Foundation Foundations, the Resilient Landscapes Initiative supported 59 projects that Elizabeth Hagood conserved 50,000 acres of land in 11 states across the East, showcasing resilient Former Executive Director landscapes from Maine to Tennessee. In partnership with the Land Trust Lowcountry Open Land Trust Alliance and other organizations, OSI also created and distributed a science Dr. David Haskell and communications guide, provided planning grants, and hosted workshops Professor of Biology to help a growing number of land trusts incorporate climate change in 41 land Sewanee University of the South acquisition plans. Through these efforts, the Initiative set a strong foundation Lark Hayes for OSI’s ongoing work to advance the role of land conservation — not just to Principal facilitate adaptation to climate change but also to mitigate its harmful effects Lark Conservation Consulting by protecting lands that can store and sequester carbon. Dr. Rua Mordecai We are indebted to our advisors who occupy the column to the right for Science Coordinator, South their guidance and wisdom, and, as always, to the dedicated trustees of Atlantic Landscape Conservation OSI who oversee our work. OSI is pleased to provide the following report, Cooperative which describes the mission and scope of the Resilient Landscapes Initiative, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service summarizes its accomplishments, and provides a look to the future. Dr. Alan Weakley Director University of North Carolina Herbarium, Adjunct Prof. of Biology UNC-CH John Adams Kim Elliman Founding Director Natural Resources Defense Open Space Institute President and Chief Executive Officer Council and OSI Co-Chair 1 A NEW PARADIGM FOR then conserving their future habitat—a process that was logistically complex and required highly accurate CONSERVATION climate predictions. In a special section of Conservation Every now and then, a big idea emerges in the world Biology in 2015 about the new science, National of conservation science with the potential to change Climate Change Policy Advisor for the U.S. Fish and how conservation gets done on the ground. Such an Wildlife Service Mark Shaffer wrote: “We are entering idea surfaced a decade ago, in 2010, when a group of a new era of conservation, one where not all the old conservation scientists began to clarify what plants rules apply. The way forward is unclear, and we need and animals would need to survive climate change. to be creative, flexible, and adaptive.” Instead of focusing on the habitat of single species The exciting promise of resilience science lay in its or “natural communities,” the emerging science, emphasis on protecting persistent features of the developed by Dr. Mark Anderson at The Nature land—not just its biological aspects, but physical Conservancy and other scientists across the country, features as well. Of particular importance were focused on the enduring physical features of a certain geologies, such as limestone soils, that highly landscape—such as geology, calcareous bedrock, correlate with biodiversity, and microclimates, latitude, and elevation and landforms—to determine typically found in more topographically diverse their “resilience,” or likelihood a place could retain landscapes, that allow species to find refuge during plants and animals even in a changing climate. A climatic upheaval. theatrical metaphor captured the idea of conserving For land trusts, the science also breathed new the “stage”—or diverse landscape features—that life into the notion of “protecting the places that would ultimately support a likely changing cast of endure” and provided a new and compelling “characters,” or species, and thereby protect plants rationale for conserving land with climate change and animals over the long-term. in mind. Adoption of the new resilience science The new resilience science represented a paradigm by practitioners was facilitated by development of shift from the prevailing approach to climate. user-friendly datasets that used geology, landforms Previously, conservation planners had either ignored and measures of connectivity to estimate the relative climate change, or utilized “vulnerability analyses” resilience of a site. which purported to predict how species might Still, when OSI launched its Initiative the science adjust as the climate changes, to identify the places was new, and the challenge of using it to drive land to protect that would facilitate their movement. protection on the ground was complex. The stage However, such an approach required trying to was set for an exciting new chapter in the history of determine how thousands of species would react, and conservation. Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge, Pennsylvania 2 Photo Credit: Bill Amos Crooked River Forest, Maine THE FUND’S GOALS trust community. With $262,000 in “Catalyst Grants,” OSI supported projects that helped land trusts across OSI launched the Resilient Landscapes Initiative to the east understand and apply the science, often translate new climate science and guide acquisitions, in collaboration with other land trusts and state while encouraging a shift in conservation planning— agencies. from an almost exclusive focus on “natural communities” and species, to the protection of The Resilient Landscapes Initiative was OSI’s most enduring features. To achieve these goals, OSI geographically ambitious effort, focused across the provided capital and planning grants, conducted eastern U.S. with the goal to translate and support education and training efforts, and developed and more climate-oriented land conservation on the distributed guidance materials. ground. The Initiative built on numerous regional land conservation funds that OSI has established Capitalized by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and managed since the year 2000; these funds OSI’s Initiative provided $11 million in capital ranged from protecting large tracts of forestland for land protection projects, in seven areas that and community forests in northern New England; encompassed parts of 11 eastern states. The areas to ecological linkages across the U.S.-Canadian were chosen because of their resilience, the degree border; to conserving threatened wildlife habitat in and manageability of threats, the capacity of land the Mid-Atlantic; to preserving

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