September was a very busy month for Partners for Conservation in our efforts to support public-private partnerships and collaborative conservation. During the third week in September we hosted a session we called Diverse Perspective Partnerships for Team Leaders in Denver, which convened landowners and nonprofit leaders with federal and state agency supervisors whose teams work with diverse partners. The group discussed the challenges of building productive relationships and partnerships and also transferring those skills throughout their teams. Also discussed were challenges to implementing a collaborative approach and potential strategies to overcome those challenges.
During the last week of September PFC hosted the 12th Annual Private Lands Partners Day in Ogden, Utah. After a year of planning with a diverse team of landowners, agency and conservation organization staff the meeting drew 170 landowners and conservation partners from around Utah and around the country.
The field trip focused on Rich County, Utah and the public-private conservation partnership work being accomplished in that landscape, including the Three Creeks Grazing Allotment Consolidation Project, an innovative approach to grazing management across multiple public and private land ownerships. The conference portion of the meeting included addresses from national and state conservation leaders including Chief Matthew Lohr with the USDA-National Resources Conservation Service and Commissioner Kerry Gibson of the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food. The group also heard conservation partnership stories from landowners and their partners, both from Utah and from a number of other states. All the stories stressed the importance of integrating multiple perspectives and the “triple bottom line” of stewardship, economy, and community. The presentations were recorded on video and will be available soon.
Reports on both Private Lands Partners Day and Diverse Perspective Partnerships for Team Leaders will be available in the coming months and made available through the newsletter and on the Partners for Conservation website.
