Exemplary Conservation Leadership in New England and Across Six Continents
Free webinar on April 5 at 11 am EDT
The Program on Conservation Innovation at the Harvard Forest, in partnership with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, invites you to join us for an online dialogue with Nan Jenks-Jay of Middlebury College and Laura Johnson of the International Land Conservation Network on Tuesday, April 5, at 11 am EDT.
The webinar will feature two leaders who are instrumental in shaping new models for land conservation in the northeastern United States and around the globe. The session will begin with Jenks-Jay, who serves as Dean of Environmental Affairs at Middlebury College. She will describe Middlebury's multiyear effort to protect in perpetuity a key 2,100-acre area in Vermont's Green Mountains that is home to Middlebury's Bread Loaf campus — a remarkable achievement for which Middlebury was recently awarded the Charles H.W. Foster Award for Exemplary Leadership in Land Conservation. The Bread Loaf campus is rich both with biodiversity and cultural history. It is a revered place where generations of writers have sharpened their talents in the presence of such luminaries as the poet Robert Frost.
Following Nan will be Laura Johnson, Director of the International Land Conservation Network (ILCN), a project of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Laura will consider the ILCN's recent progress, including the hosting of its first Congress in Berlin, Germany in October 2015. At the Berlin meeting, some 90 private and civic sector conservationists from 27 nations gathered to share insights in the areas of conservation finance, law and policy, organization and program administration, and the stewardship of large landscapes. Johnson will also discuss the power of the new network to help catalyze fresh conservation initiatives from Myanmar to Mexico, and across the European Union.
This Conservation Innovation Forum will be moderated by James N. Levitt. Jim Levitt, who focuses on historic and present-day innovation in the field of land conservation, serves as Director of the Program on Conservation Innovation at the Harvard Forest, Harvard University; a Manager of Land Conservation Programs in the Department of Planning and Urban Form at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; and a Senior Fellow at the Highstead Foundation.