The annual Regional Conservation Partnership (RCP) Network Gathering is a free, one-day conference that brings together people advancing collaborative landscape conservation along with their allies and advocates. The Gathering is a place to connect with colleagues, meet new partners, share successes and challenges, and learn new skills. This event supports the growth of RCPs, promotes cross-disciplinary partnerships, and helps advance the pace and practice of landscape conservation throughout the Northeast and beyond.
At the 2023 Gathering, we heard from philanthropic and environmental justice leaders about the importance of working in partnership to address multiple goals beyond biodiversity conservation. In 2024, we will apply these lessons as we explore what makes a “healthy community.” Ecosystems are more resilient when their parts are restored. Similarly, advancing multiple objectives outside of conservation will take diverse voices, groups, sectors, and areas of expertise.
Regional Conservation Partnerships
Regional Conservation Partnerships (RCPs) help to increase the pace and scale of land conservation across property, town, state, and regional boundaries. Together we are building reciprocal relationships with new people and sectors, sharing and scaling the work outward, and helping to foster healthier, more just, climate-resilient communities.
Over the past few decades, people across New England, the East Coast, and beyond have organized and advanced RCPs to increase the pace and scale of land protection and stewardship in service of a shared conservation vision across property, town, state, and sometimes regional boundaries. Highstead coordinates, researches, and convenes RCPs in networks, helping their members and RCPs innovate and accomplish more with regional partners like foundations, colleges and universities, conservation organizations, and state and federal agencies.
Since forming and with Highstead’s support, the RCP Network has helped RCPs conserve more than 35,000 acres across the region and secure more than $23 million from grants, federal funding, and fundraising. At least 12 new RCPs have been established and more than 25 have advanced one or more stages of development through direct Network engagement.
Highstead
Highstead, a regional conservation and ecological stewardship nonprofit based in Redding, CT, serves as the host partner of the RCP Network and organizes the annual RCP Network Gathering with the support of a diverse steering committee. Highstead’s vision aligns with the Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities vision which calls for the permanent protection of 70% of New England as forests and 7% as farmlands by 2060 to ensure a thriving landscape and to support the communities who depend on it.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ)
We are committed to addressing injustices perpetrated on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and other historically marginalized communities. Since 2021, the RCP Network Gathering has centered on land justice. Any path to a healthier, more climate-resilient, and biodiverse future requires collaboration among diverse people and sectors to ensure everyone benefits. We acknowledge that the RCP Network Gathering has yet to fully reflect the diversity of people and interests that need to be involved in these discussions. We commit to continuing to build strong relationships with BIPOC individuals, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other historically underrepresented groups to elevate areas of shared interest toward a sustainable and just future for all.
