Regions on the rise

The NRCS says it can help foster wide and deep conservation impacts by giving partners more latitude. (Photo courtesy NRCS.) 

Alternative Funding Arrangement: Unlocking Partnerships With Private Capital at USDA NRCS

Michele Haynes
Kari Cohen, Branch Chief at USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), oversees regional partnerships. Kari explained the Alternative Funding Arrangement (AFA) provision of the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which will invest up to $50 million in fiscal year 2020. The first cohort of up to 15 projects this fall will...

Aligning Conservation and Community Development for Increased Impact in Sentinel Landscapes—and Beyond

Kendra Briechle
What makes efforts to preserve land harmonize with efforts to promote commerce? In this article, we review several examples. Entrepreneurs learn to bolster terrain for hikers (who drink beer), historically sensitive consumers, and fellow merchants. These examples show how creative approaches to promoting conservation and community-based development can yield ongoing...

Beyond Easements: Broader Approaches for Greater Conservation Outcomes

Michele Haynes
Easements unlock value for landowners and preserve land for everyone else. With challenges to our ecosystem and economy coming faster and from more directions, conservation leaders need tools that apply more quickly or in quirkier situations. This toolkit looks over a range of techniques that extend conservation to situations where...
How do you sum the value of everything in, from, and under these trees?

(Courtesy City Forest Credits.) Beyond soothing imagery, urban trees measurably lift air quality, energy affordability and employment. City Forest Credits aims to quantify what that's worth. 

A Startup Seeks to Raise Urban Equity

Andy Xie
City Forest Credits matches nonprofits and cities to fundi urban trees. It describes its mission as one to make “American cities greener, healthier, and more equitable.” By computing value of rainfall interception, air quality benefits and energy savings, the outfit aims to define premium price for nonprofit organizations to charge...
Copper Creek, courtesy the Conservation Fund, photo by Bill Mullens

How do you ascribe dollars to this? (Photo by Bill Mullins, courtesy the Conservation Fund)

Book Excerpt: Valuing Nature

William J. Ginn
Island Press’ publication of Valuing Nature: A Handbook for Impact Investing by William Ginn comes 15 years after his first book helped launch what became the Conservation Finance Network. While the lessons captured in prior works still ring true, the conservation finance field has experienced rapid growth in recent years...