Hudson to Housatonic Regional Conservation Partnership

H2H is an interstate Regional Conservation Partnership (RCP) stretching from the Hudson River in New York State to the Housatonic in Connecticut. Comprised of 50+ partner organizations and agencies, H2H works within a collaborative framework towards a shared regional vision for the landscape for all people and nature to enjoy.

H2H's approach to conservation starts with the big-picture: it centers on protecting and managing for the shared natural resources between communities existing together in nearby watersheds. Bound by important major water features, the Long Island Sound to the South and two major rivers to the East and West, this cross-state partnership works to increase the pace and capacity for land protection and stewardship to support connected habitat for a diversity of wildlife, native plantings for a suite of vital pollinators, and swaths of open space and clean waters for our communities to enjoy.

Beyond the interconnections existing between the communities in our region, H2H also recognizes its connections and the role it must play in the greater landscape. To this end, H2H is part of the  RCP Network , an organization of more than 40 RCPs throughout New England and New York with shared goals, interests, and visions for the landscape. Together, the RCP Network works to coordinate between RCPs to achieve that which cannot be done by any one RCP alone - much like how individual RCPs harness the collaborative power of their member organizations to great effect.

H2H also subscribes to the  Wildlands and Woodlands  (W&W) vision for the New England landscape, which "calls for conservation of 70 percent of New England as forests and 7 percent as farmlands — while we still have this spectacular chance." This vision is guided by the notion that collaborative conservation is the tool through which we may achieve a lasting, sustainable landscape for all to enjoy.

"Together we will sustain the forested and natural landscapes that in turn sustain us." - W&W

H2H's host partner is the Highstead Foundation, based in Redding, CT. Highstead began as an arboretum, attracting hundreds of visitors every year to walk its over-100 acres and enjoy its plant collections. Since those days, Highstead has expanded to become a leading conservation-oriented non-profit in this region, helping to support RCPs and the RCP Network across New England, as well as playing a leading role in the formation and governance of the H2H partnership.

The Westchester Land Trust (WLT) also played a pivotal role in the creation of H2H. Prior to its founding, half of the H2H region was already covered by a different RCP, the Fairfield County RCP (FCRCP), located in Fairfield County, CT. Westchester Land Trust, inspired by the work of FCRCP and interested in getting involved, began attending FCRCP meetings and participating in some of the partnership activities. Eventually, WLT helped lead the H2H Conservation Initiative, partnering with FCRCP, which led to the formal formation of the H2H RCP.

Blossoming from this initiative and expanding from FCRCP into a greater interstate RCP, H2H spent much of its earlier years drafting partner agreements, establishing a governance structure, and developing a strategic conservation map and focal areas. Eventually, these developmental stages led H2H to its shared Mission and Vision statements, agreed upon by partners as unifying ideals to aspire to.

H2H's governance structure is organized in a bottom-up fashion, with just a few centralized leaders keeping things coordinated and moving along. We are composed of four working groups, each of which specialize in an area of importance to the partnership and work towards making progress in that field. These are:

1. Land Protection
2. Municipal Engagement
3. Landowner Engagement
4. Partner Training and Capacity Building

H2H is also guided by a Steering Committee which meets quarterly to discuss major topics facing the partnership, next steps for projects, and other items. Day-to-day operations are conducted by an RCP Coordinator.

One of the central guiding components to H2H's Conservation Strategy is a series of key challenges that our partners view as the greatest threats to our landscape vision.

The first major threat to our region identified by partners is development pressure. When pressure is so great that development becomes sprawling and unrestricted, the landscape mosaic vision H2H aspires to is threatened. This kind of development removes our forests and farms, replacing them with a built environment which destroys viable habitat for wildlife, it reduces human outdoor recreation opportunities by replacing open space, and it threatens the cleanliness of our waterways by removing natural filtration systems. Development also fragments large, connected forest blocks (AKA forest fragmentation), hampering wildlife's ability to safely move around. A major focus of H2H is to strategically protect land in a way that permanently connects forests, creating safe "wildlife corridors" across the landscape.

The next major threat H2H partners cited is Invasive Species. Invasive species are species that are both nonnative to a given region and disruptive to the ecological functioning of that region. In the H2H region, invasive species most often come in the form of nonnative plants, brought to our locality as a result of humans’ tendency to travel and accidentally (or sometimes not) bring seeds of these plants with them. Once established, invasives may disrupt an area’s ecology by outcompeting native plants, many of which are important food resources for native pollinators and herbivores. 

This is one threat the Pollinator Pathway Northeast (PP), a major initiative of H2H, aims to tackle. This initiative is discussed in greater detail below.

A third major threat to our region identified by H2H partners is Climate Change. Climate change may increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather events and raise sea levels, both of which could harshly impact the coastal cities involved in our partnership. Climate change may also disrupt the ecology of our region, shifting and mismatching phenological pairings, like those between flower blooms and pollinator emergence, and forcing certain species to migrate northward in search of cooler temperatures.

Managing our forests in such a way to maximize their carbon sequestration potential is one way H2H is looking to help slow the rate of climate change. Some conservationists argue for a "proforestation" management approach which calls for allowing trees to grow and capture as much carbon from the atmosphere as possible.

You've seen above a background on the H2H Regional Conservation Partnership: where it's located, what brings us together, our partners and hosts, and some of the threats we face. Next, the following sections detail what H2H strives to accomplish as a partnership, as well as highlighting a few of its past achievements.

To take on these threats and challenges and to achieve the mission and vision of our landscape partnership, H2H partners work together on a set of key shared priorities across the landscape:

Much of H2H's work is driven by our four key working groups:

• Working Group 1: Land Protection - Members of the Land Protection working group work to devise strategies and develop projects around one of H2H's key goals: protecting land. They are responsible for identifying areas of our partnership region prime for protection and working towards making that protection happen. This is the working group that led both the 2018 H2H Conservation Map and 2019 H2H Urban Mapping Initiative, discussed further below.
• Working Group 2: Municipal Engagement - The second working group focuses on engaging the numerous municipalities comprising the H2H partnership region. They work to partner with local officials and local governments to spread the word about H2H, and to promote the values of conservation and stewardship to the communities therein.
• Working Group 3: Engagement - The third working group is responsible for engaging communities throughout the H2H partnership region. One of the most successful community outreach efforts, the Pollinator Pathway Northeast initiative, operates out of this working group.
• Working Group 4: Partner Training and Capacity Building - Working Group 4 is responsible for putting on workshops and spearheading the work towards H2H's Objective in empowering our partners. A sampling of their work in past workshops is showcased in the slides above.

Joining and participating in one or more of these working groups is one of the most direct ways you as a partner can have your voice heard and make an impact through H2H. Each working group hosts quarterly meetings and are autonomous - their priorities and actions are driven almost entirely by the members making up the groups.

H2H has taken on two major conservation mapping projects, positioning the partnership towards forming an overall Strategic Conservation Plan for the region.

The first is the aforementioned Strategic Conservation Map, completed in 2018. This map was developed over several months with heavy input from partners and driven by a dedicated GIS team. It used a co-occurrence GIS modeling method, in which agreed-upon conservation values of Ecological Importance, Water Resources, and Proximity to Already-Protected Parcels were represented by GIS data layers. The GIS model added these data layers together, producing an output layer which highlights areas of high overlap of these values - as a partnership, we interpret these as "Areas of Highest Conservation Value," acknowledging that these are prime locations for future land protection projects. 

The Strategic Conservation Map also helped partners identify H2H focus areas. Focus areas are geographic areas of the partnership region identified by partners as places to focus future projects based on attributes that the GIS model could not identify using existing data. For these, partners took into consideration things like knowledge of high-value parcels, already-existing projects, and geographic locations of organizations. Once agreed-upon, these focus areas were digitized and added to the final Strategic Conservation Map. 

The second step H2H has taken is an extension of the first, but focuses specifically on the more urbanized areas of our partnership region. In 2019, H2H embarked on the journey to creating an Urban Conservation Mapping Model. Shortly into the creation of the 2018 map, H2H partners realized that the conservation values of importance used to determine areas of Highest Conservation Value throughout most of the region could not be applied in the same way to urban areas. Thus, H2H partners decided to develop a new model specifically for urban regions which would highlight values like human mobility, public health, and equity and social factors, while retaining values of ecology and human recreation as well. Using this value-shift, H2H partners Highstead and the Norwalk Land Trust launched a pilot project in the city of Norwalk to test the model and create an urban conservation map. In Spring of 2020 this map was completed and the urban model was ready to be applied to other urbanized areas throughout the partnership region. 

H2H, and RCPs broadly, are rooted in the idea that collaboration is key to unlocking the potential of conservation organizations across landscapes. Through networks like RCPs, we can do more together than we could ever hope to alone - but this can only occur when partners come together and work towards a goal together. Below are just a few examples from our partners on how collaboration has made a difference in their work.

Collaboration allows for resource-sharing across towns, organizations, and other groups

• "Collaboration is always helpful and most of the time critical for the success of any initiative. We have strong collaborations with the community officials and other local conservation groups that have allowed us to pool resources to achieve projects that were beyond our reach alone." - H2H Partner

• "Collaboration has been essential to carrying out our mission. Almost every major conservation success we've enjoyed has involved working with other conservation organizations and government entities, particularly Town government." - Somers Land Trust

Collaboration creates opportunities for peer-exchange of ideas and messaging

• "Talking to other organizations helps with ideas and insight on how to navigate getting our message out there." - New Castle Pollinator Pathway Coalition

• "Collaboration has been helpful spreading the word and sharing the development of conservation programming (i.e. invasive removal volunteer day, bluebird house or mason bee workshop, etc.)." - Woodcock Nature Center

Collaboration bolsters funding proposals and helps secure funding for more projects

• "Every major public and private funder that we have worked with prefers to see that we are collaborating with other partners to bring a deal to fruition. This gives the funder confidence that we are utilizing their dollars wisely, that all parties have real skin in the game, and that this is not just a WLT vanity project (i.e. the more partners, the greater likelihood that it is truly meeting a community goal)." - Westchester Land Trust

Finally, the most impactful thing you can do to move our mission forward is to participate! Take advantage of the events and workshops H2H hosts. These workshops are meant to empower our partners and are only as useful as those who are willing to participate make them. The success of our quarterly All-Partner meetings is also entirely dependent on enthusiastic participation from partners who attend. These meetings are often vital to setting major goals and refining the partnership's collective vision for the year, things which can only be achieved through discussion from attending partners. In the meantime, our newly-launched H2H listserv is a great way to reach your fellow partners between meetings, to share upcoming opportunities and knowledge, and to stay connected in general. 

If you're not already a partner of H2H but you've read this far and are interested in the work we do - great! We'd love to have you be part of the team fighting for the vibrant and healthy landscape vision we all aspire to. Please contact H2H Coordinator Katie Blake (kblake@highstead.net) for more information on the process to becoming an H2H partner. 

StoryMap Composed By: Casey Hamilton, Conservation Associate, Highstead Foundation