Landcare Central Newsletter (USA)

September 2009

Dear landcare practitioners and supporters,

This first e-newsletter is intended to provide a brief update on several
landcare initiatives in the United States in 2009. The items listed below
are just the tip of the iceberg regarding the landcare movement and industry
in America. Since the 2007 National Landcare Workshop, much progress has
been made in advancing the landcare movement and industry in the United
States.  Congratulations to all who have helped make these accomplishments
possible!

For more information, please visit the Landcare Central website at
http://landcarecentral.org

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Landcare is sustainable land management-including agriculture, forestry,
landscaping and related practices-that integrates conservation and
development goals to maintain and improve green infrastructure and ecosystem
services. Successful landcare (i.e., producing long-term and large-scale
positive impacts) often involves landowners cooperating with their neighbors
and strategic partners to accomplish shared objectives and common goals that
no one can achieve working alone.

 

Landcare & Green Infrastructure-The Green Regions (www.greenregions.org)
public awareness campaign has made great strides in assisting and
recognizing successful landcare efforts across the country.  Sponsored by
the National Association of Regional Councils (NARC), Green Regions was
designed to profile exemplary efforts in green infrastructure and landcare
program implementation across the US.  This year, they recognized Green Bay,
Wisconsin's Bay-Lake Regional Planning Commission and Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania's Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.

 

Landcare & Land Trusts- Jerry Moles and colleagues at Grayson LandCare have
organized a special workshop on landcare at the Land Trust Alliance Rally in
Portland in October, 2009. The workshop, titled Landcare, Working Lands, and
Conservation, will occur on Tuesday October 13. Presenters from Australia
and the U.S. will share research findings and experiences of successful
on-the-ground programs. Consider attending this workshop if you are already
planning on being at Rally, or register!

 

Landcare PlaceStories - PlaceStories, an online digital storytelling
project, has partnered with the Landcare Center to develop the Landcare
America's PlaceStories website. Designed as an easy and low-cost way to
share stories of communities and projects from around the world,
PlaceStories is proving to be a resource for community landcare efforts to
share their challenges and accomplishments in an easily accessible,
multi-media format.  Though in the early stages of development, PlaceStories
will serve as a valuable resource to allow landcare groups and practitioners
to profile their communities and projects as well as to learn from other
communities around the world struggling with similar challenges. See

 

International Landcare book  - Landcare: Local Action--Global Progress, a
free e-book on international landcare published by the World Agroforestry
Centre and partners has brought together the lessons and successes of
landcare in Australia, Germany, New Zealand, the Artic, The Philippines,
South Africa, East Africa, and America. The book connects the local
successes of landcare to their global impact, as well as considering the way
that landcare is able to mesh with local cultures to be successfully
implemented.

 

Community Landcare: Appalachia to the Adirondacks  Community landcare groups
and networks-like Grayson LandCare and Catawba Landcare in southwest
Virginia and Montreat Landcare in northwest North Carolina-continue to form
and thrive in the United States. Partners in the Adirondack region have
recently been organizing a network of community landcare supporters and the
National Network of Forest Practitioners (NNFP) has been working with
"forest landcare" communities in Ohio. The National Association of
Conservation Districts (NACD) recently published a report titled Our Land,
Our Water highlighting some of these landcare efforts. See pages 49-50 of
the report.

 

Landcare Exchange and Study Tours - Following a decade-long series of
international exchanges between the landcare supporters in the US and other
countries, Karen Brisbane, Goulburn Valley Landcare coordinator, is the
latest winner of the Victorian Landcare Travel Fellowship. Karen will be
visiting the western United States in September-October 2009. Karen has
coordinated the Goulburn Murray Landcare Network in the intensively farmed
irrigation country surrounding Shepparton for eight years. It numbers over
40 groups. She has also been active in the State Landcare Network, a
professional guild for Victoria's 300 coordinators and facilitators.