March 2023 Update
Friends —
As we round the corner to head into Spring, I’m excited to see that the seeds of Keeping Forests’ strategy are coming to life. Keeping Forests is unique in its role of catalyzing market-based forest conservation across an entire landscape, the U.S. South. Our success depends on our ability to convene a community of multi-sector partners to determine the most innovative solutions that can be brought to scale.
Over the next few months you will see what that looks like in action. Here is a preview of what's to come:
Building capacity to leverage and engage networks to achieve Southern forest conservation: Keeping Forests is firmly rooted in collaboration. We know that to ensure a thriving future for Southern forests requires that a diverse set of actors come together to develop actionable insights and strategies. But who are those people or organizations? How are we connected with one another? How can we leverage one another to create efficiencies? Who is missing?
We have partnered with Visible Network Labs to answer these questions. Over the next year, they will be helping Keeping Forests to develop a network map and living, web-based tool that will enable us to inform strategy, measure outcomes, and break down silos.
Nothing like this exists. It is not only a critical step for Keeping Forests to achieve its vision and mission, but it is also our contribution to the community as we enhance the ability of an entire region to collaborate more effectively on shared priorities. Stay tuned for an invitation to participate in this Social Network Analysis effort and spread the word across the South.
Cultivating participation in voluntary water markets: People don't make decisions based on facts or figures. They make decisions based on their values and what impacts them most directly. While every day we rely on the clean and abundant water that flows from our tap, we don't think about where it comes from or make the connection that -- without forests -- this water doesn't flow.
Keeping Forests is on a mission to develop a financial mechanism that compensates the landowners who steward these forests for the benefits this resource provides to water quality and quantity. To do that, we need to understand what makes people tick and how to illuminate the forest-water connection in a way that matters to them, not just us.
In partnership with environmental / conservation social science experts from Impact by Design, we are piloting a behavioral change campaign in Lake Greenwood, SC to determine the most effective ways to encourage participation in voluntary payments for the ecosystem services that forests provide for water. This work will enable us to create conservation solutions steeped in human-centered design.
Everything that Keeping Forests does must create a benefit that helps us gain efficiencies that scale across the Southeast. The work that we are doing in Lake Greenwood with core partners at the Southern Group of State Foresters and the South Carolina Forestry Commission is the first step to understand how to create a forest-water connection that motivates people to invest in a resource that is essential to our survival. We will build on these lessons in further application across the region.
These are just two of the efforts that are coming online in 2023. Our partner-driven strategy teams have more waiting in the wings to convene, innovate, and scale. We look forward to sharing those with you, garnering your support, and ensuring our collective success along the way.
In partnership,
Laura
Laura Calandrella
Keeping Forests Executive Director
Since Keeping Forests launched in 2016, Laura has been an advisor to Keeping Forests on the development of collaborative partnerships and collective impact strategies.
