The Year Ahead - 2011

GIC’11 – Registration Open until January 21, 2011!

The inaugural National Green Infrastructure Conference will take place February 23-25, 2011 at the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) in Shepherdstown, WV. Join us to hear nationally recognized speakers from across the country discuss key elements for success and vital lessons-learned. Be part of developing the strategy for the future of green infrastructure! Featured topics include green infrastructure and public health, social equity, transportation, economic development, and climate change – an amazing cast of national experts and innovative cases on the ground! Registration Deadline is January 21, 2011! Check the website (http://www.conservationfund.org/GIC2011) to see the most recent accreditations.

Courses and Workshops

Join us for the tenth anniversary of the national Green Infrastructure course! Two national offerings will occur in 2011 of the Strategic Conservation Planning Using a Green Infrastructure Approach course, April 11 – 15 (note the new date), and September 26-30. This highly acclaimed introductory course provides participants with a strategic approach for prioritizing conservation opportunities and a planning framework for both conservation and development – integrating the ‘green’ and the ‘grey’. In addition, the course is slated to travel to Pikes Peak Colorado in 2011. Moreover, the NOAA-TCF GIS Tools for Strategic Conservation Planning course is scheduled for May 3-6, 2011. This course enables GIS practitioners to apply GIS tools, methodologies, and analyses to strategic conservation planning using a ‘green infrastructure’ approach. This GIS course consistently receives excellent ratings from its students; students must be advanced GIS users to fully benefit. 2011 will be another big year for our Balancing Nature and Commerce in Communities that Neighbor Public Lands course! The national course offering is scheduled for April 18-20, 2011 and is open to teams from across the country – be it communities neighboring parks, forests, refuges or government owned reservoirs. Participating teams focus on community character – what it is and how to protect, maintain and enhance it; partnerships (between public land managers and communities); economic development that capitalizes sustainably on a community’s assets; and action planning (developing detailed action plans that are reflective of a team’s vision). In 2011, CLN has been invited to deliver place-based offerings in the Poconos Region of Pennsylvania and the Heart of the Continent Region, which spans the border between Minnesota in the US and Ontario in Canada. The Heart of the Continent is the largest public expanse of green space in the continent covering more than 5.5 million acres; this innovative partnership is comprised of the Superior National Forest, Voyageurs National Park, the Boundary Waters, Quetico Provincial Park, and Parks Canada, plus many more. Watch for more information on this trans-boundary project! The 2nd national offering of the Conservation Banking Course will be offered May 16-20, 2011 in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Marine Corps, the Federal Highway Administration, USDA Forest Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Mitigation Bankers Association. This unique course brings together regulators, users, and bankers to learn the fundamentals of conservation banking. A regional offering is also being planned in the Pacific Northwest! The 5th annual offering of a Training Course for Mitigation Banking and In-Lieu Fee Program Interagency Review Teams (IRTs) is scheduled for June 20-24, 2011. This course is offered in partnership with the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and is only open to interagency review team (IRT) members. The course, nicknamed “IRT Boot Camp,” provides IRT members with a thorough grounding in the relevant federal mitigation policy and guidance along with the leadership skills necessary to be an effective member of an IRT. A waiting list for the course is established each year, so register early! As always, continue to check our website for the latest information on course offerings!

ARC-NEA Gateway Communities Program

The Conservation Fund/Conservation Leadership Network staff and the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) are partnering again to offer an unprecedented third round of Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Gateway Communities Award Program grants. Specifically, with our partners at the NTHP, CLN will offer technical assistance to Appalachian communities in the form of tourism assessments and action planning workshops. For 2011, five communities were selected to receive these awards: The Town of Haysi in Virginia and the Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area in Alabama -- as recipients of tourism assessments; Delaware County New York, Union County Tennessee, and Pickens County South Carolina – as recipients of Gateway Action Planning workshops predicated after the Fund’s Balancing Nature and Commerce program and the NTHP’s Share Your Heritage program.