27 May, 18:00 CET
Academic communities can be a powerful force for positive environmental change locally and globally. Connecting university researchers with land conservation organisations and managers can leverage the strengths and benefits of each to achieve conservation outcomes. This webinar will focus on efforts underway to understand and foster university/land conservation organisation partnerships. The discussion will include questions such as: What are barriers to and facilitators of such partnerships? What makes a good partnership? When are university researchers best able to answer or address questions for land conservation organisations? When and why aren’t they? What kinds of successful partnerships already exist, and what support exists for those? Panelists will share perspectives from their experiences in the academic community and as land conservation practitioners. The webinar will be hosted by Jim Levitt, Program Director for Land and Water Conservation at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and will be chaired by David Foster, Director of the Harvard Forest at Harvard University. Panelists will include: Marianne Jorgensen, Coordinator for Academics for Land Protection in New England (ALPINE); Nicole Ardoin, Sykes Family Director of the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University; and Lluis Brotons, Senior Researcher at the Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre.
Speakers
James N. Levitt, Program Director for Land and Water Conservation at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Jim Levitt is the Program Director for Land and Water Conservation at the Lincoln Institute, and director of the program on conservation innovation at the Harvard Forest, Harvard University, in Petersham, Massachusetts. In addition, he holds ongoing fellowships at the Harvard Kennedy School and at Highstead, a non-profit organization advancing land conservation in New England. Levitt focuses on landmark innovations in the field of land and biodiversity conservation (both present-day and historic) that are characterized by five traits: novelty and creativity in conception; strategic significance; measurable effectiveness; international transferability; and the ability to endure. Levitt has written and edited dozens of articles and four books on land and biodiversity conservation. He has lectured widely on the topic in venues ranging from Santiago, Chile, to Beijing, China, and Stockholm, Sweden.
David Foster, Director of Harvard Forest, Harvard University David Foster is an ecologist, director of the Harvard Forest, Harvard University's 4000-acre ecological laboratory and classroom in central Massachusetts, and board member of the Highstead Foundation. David’s research focuses on understanding past and future landscape dynamics resulting from climate change and other human and natural processes and applying these results to the conservation of natural and cultural landscapes. Beginning in 2005, David and colleagues developed Wildlands and Woodlands – A Vision for the New England Landscape, which lays out an ambitious plan for forest and farmland conservation integrated with community development. Increasingly, he is focusing his efforts towards advancing this initiative with colleagues at Highstead, regional conservation partnerships, and land trusts. David is the author of Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the Edge (2014) and A Meeting of Land and Sea: Nature and the Future of Martha's Vineyard (2017).
Please register here.