We are in a time of tremendous change, which brings both challenges and opportunities. To meet this moment, Gathering Waters is focused on providing practical resources and advice land trusts need now through video conference forums and a Facebook group just for the land trust community.
It’s our top priority to connect and support our land trust members through this time, even as we continue to bring benefits to your organization through advocacy, services, and amplifying the impact of your work. Your membership in Gathering Waters matters. It helps us to pursue lasting land conservation – together – to meet community and ecological needs throughout Wisconsin.
If you have any questions regarding your land trust’s membership with Gathering Waters, or these initiatives, please contact Meg Domroese, Director of Programs and Impact.
In 2020, Gathering Waters is committed to vital initiatives to support and sustain the land trust community well into the future.
- Policy Advocacy and the Future of the Stewardship Program: Gathering Waters continues to lead the effort to protect millions of dollars in annual state funding, for land trusts and their conservation partners, through the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program. With your help in 2019, we worked hard to ensure the program continued to be funded. State legislators passed a final budget that included funding for Knowles-Nelson, though the funding was not approved for the amount of time we had hoped (two years instead of ten). This means the program will be debated again heading into the 2021 budget cycle. We are already planning for and investing in the advocacy efforts that will be required to convince legislators to approve the necessary amount of funding for the appropriate length of time. In addition, we are anticipating the effects of COVID-19 on the state budget and incorporating those dynamics into our approach.
- Wisconsin Model Conservation Easement: In 2019, Gathering Waters launched a task force, comprising attorneys and land trust practitioners, to develop a model conservation easement that will guide drafting easements and promote best practices and enforceable legal agreements consistent with conservation goals and current laws. The process is expected to take 12-18 months as we solicit comments from the statewide land trust community, and will include training to implement easements using the model, as well as a platform for ongoing review and updates.
- Geographic Information System (GIS): We are committed to maintaining and updating the statewide geographic database of easements and fee lands protected by land trusts, now in its second year. We are building on this resource by working with individual land trusts to utilize mapping and other GIS tools, and leveraging the database to facilitate collaboration between land trusts and other conservation partners. Adding to the suite of resources, in February, we rolled out the first Wisconsin land trust report that compiled and featured all land trust acquisitions in 2019.
- Discover Wisconsin Land Trust Days Episode: Discover Wisconsin’s episode featuring Wisconsin Land Trust Days aired June 13 and 14, 2020, with viewership upwards of 600,000! Gathering Waters contracted with Discover Wisconsin in 2019 to produce the episode. We are excited about this opportunity to reach new audiences to promote the importance of land trusts. While COVID-19 may necessitate alternative event formats for Land Trust Days this year, we are committed to the same strong marketing effort that will encourage Wisconsinites to connect with their local land trust.
