About This Initiative
Kawartha Land Trust (KLT) is convening a new multi-partner initiative, bringing diverse groups and sectors together to identify and partner on regional-scale initiatives in order to support resilient landscapes and communities.
The intention of this collaboration is to activate an innovative vision for the future of the Kawarthas, uniting diverse partners to reverse biodiversity and habitat loss, and mitigate the impacts of climate change and social inequities through ”joined-up” approaches to land protection and stewardship across the region.
Together, KLT and the Centre for Land Conservation identified the need for greater collaboration on a regional scale. With support from the ECHO Foundation, KLT has taken on the role of being the backbone organization for this initiative, with the intention of it growing into an independent, self-driven collaborative.
This regional conservation and climate partnership aims to enhance the health and well-being of both the environment and those who rely on it.
Achieving this goal requires collaboration across the Kawarthas and across sectors that focus on wildlands (including woodlands, wetlands, grasslands, and riparian areas), working lands (such as woodlots and farmlands), and more-populated town lands and urban communities.
This initiative aims to enhance the health and well-being of local ecosystems and all beings who rely on them.
Why Does it Matter?
This initiative is a local response to global challenges of biodiversity and habitat loss and global targets that state the goal of protecting 30% of Earth’s lands, oceans, coastal areas, and inland waters by 2030 (known as 30×30) and aims for “the integrity, connectivity and resilience of all ecosystems [be] maintained, enhanced, or restored, substantially increasing the area of natural ecosystems by 2050.”
These global targets were adopted at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological diversity (COP15) in December 2022. Achieving these goals will depend on collective effort and cross-sector partnerships.
The Framework’s Target 1 stresses that such processes respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This will take innovative approaches to whole-landscape conservation, ones that are durable, efficient, and that effectively engage Indigenous Peoples and communities. The Government of Canada supports the Framework and, as a signatory to the Convention, is bound by it.
The Approach
This emerging collaborative is based on a Regional Conservation Partnership (RCP) approach — a model that has become quite well-known for strengthening and accelerating conservation outcomes.
RCPs have been replicated across many different areas of the United States but are still emerging in Canada. Recognizing that addressing climate change is a key aspect of this work and inextricable from conservation, it has been added to the title of the Canadian adaptation of the RCP model to make its prioritization explicit, creating the Regional Conservation and Climate Partnership (RCCP).
This model is rooted in relationship-building and facilitating collaboration among organizations that work across conservation, habitat, biodiversity protection and enhancement, climate change mitigation, agriculture, health, and other connected fields.
RCCPs take a whole-landscape approach to regional conservation through partnership across different sectors, enhance communication, identify redundancies and opportunities for collaboration, and increase collective impact.
This holistic and integrative approach is based on a systems design approach, which in turn is extensively informed by countless examples of Indigenous ways of being and knowing.
We recognize this work as a critical means of supporting the resiliency and health of the natural world and the communities who depend on it. Our approach uses a whole-landscape lens to enhance regional ecological (and social) resilience, with a specific focus on reversing biodiversity and habitat loss and mitigating impacts of climate change.
Get Involved!
Kawarthas to build a collaborative of conservation organizations, Williams Treaties First Nations rights holders and land-based Indigenous organizations, farming and forestry groups, land-based education and recreation organizations, governments and conservation authorities, those working at the intersection of health and land, and more.
The future direction of this partnership will be shaped by the individuals around the table. A dedicated coordinator/convenor will provide ongoing support to this initiative to help sustain momentum and grow our impact. Ongoing meetings of partners are anticipated to occur every other month or so.
We hope you will join us and others to be part of creating and sustaining healthy, connected communities and a nature-positive Kawarthas together now and in the future.
For more information about this emerging collaboration, please contact Zoë Mager at [email protected] or 705-743-5599, ext.150.