Scenic Hudson is launching a land conservation initiative, with a twist. The environmental group’s strategy involves a computer model and networks of conservation areas to help address impacts of climate change.
Scenic Hudson Land Trust Executive Director Steve Rosenberg says the initiative looks to the role land conservation will play in helping communities withstand climate change impacts.
This analysis offers a new level, a highly refined way to identify a network of lands across the region that, if conserved, would most efficiently maximize the ability of the region’s habitats to adapt to climate change and still be productive and serve us in the way we need,” Rosenberg says.
Ed Henry is president of the New York City-based Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Noting the foundation has worked with Scenic Hudson before, Henry says it’s the scientific analysis aspect that immediately drew foundation members to this new initiative.
“So they’ve been involved, as we have, with The Nature Conservancy, which has developed a new method of geological analysis to see which land, which landscapes throughout the country will best be able to deal with the effects of climate change,” Henry says. “And so Scenic Hudson has used those tools. Really they’re among the first to do this, to do this analysis, to identify, because we all want to preserve land but there are only so many dollars, there’s only so many opportunities, so it’s a question of which land will be most important for the future.”
Henry says it’s the scientific analysis part that differentiates Scenic Hudson’s initiative from other land conservation projects. Rosenberg gives examples of how the new strategy could reconnect the region’s open space.
“For example, in the Hudson Highlands, where there’s already been a tremendous amount of conservation, there are gaps, there are missing pieces, and there are places that are important to look to that maybe we hadn’t focused on before that might connect important conservation lands in the Hudson Highlands to another resource area nearby,” says Rosenberg. “And those sorts of connections exist all over the Hudson Valley, whether it’s connecting the Catskills to the ridges and streams and wetlands near the Hudson River, to the east, or in other areas.”
Henry says with the initial analysis performed, Poughkeepsie-based Scenic Hudson must raise $10 million to receive the $2.3 million grant from the foundation.
“We have made this grant as a challenge grant. And so Scenic Hudson really has to match this 5-to-1. So basically, of the grant, $2 million is for actual land conservation and they need to match it with $10 million, and that’s a lot,” Henry says. “But we believe that really it can happen when people understand what the intent is and what the long-range plan is and the future of this. But it will involve individual landowners, individual donors, local, state and federal sources, probably. So it’s a big effort but it’s really important.”
The Hudson Valley Conservation Strategy encompasses an 11-county area, which includes more than a dozen Important Bird Areas. The Hudson River supports nearly 200 species of fish. Again, Rosenberg.
“The Hudson Valley makes up only 16 percent of the state’s land area but over 85 percent of the state’s vertebrate species exist here,” Rosenberg says.
Scenic Hudson is sharing the strategy with state and local governments and other conservation groups to ensure conservation investments maximize benefits. Henry says the effort could become a blueprint for land conservation elsewhere in the country.
