Invitation: Northeast Ecosystem Services and Markets Listening Sessions [10/17 & 10/19]

We are seeking a broad audience to discuss the prospect of using ecosystem services and incentive programs to bolster working lands in the northeast.

Authored by Northeast Ecosystems Services Fellows Alicia F. Coleman, PhD, and Mario R. Machado, PhD, the northeast landscape assessment –Ecosystem Services in Working Lands Practice and Policy of the U.S. Northeast – documents results from an analysis of over 1,300 ecosystem service provisioning programs and policies across the U.S. Northeast (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia, as well as in the District of Columbia.) The analysis is the first step of a long term process developed by the Association of Northeast Extension Directors (NEED) and Northeastern Regional Association of State Agricultural Experiment Station Directors (NERA) in collaboration with the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development to advance and support the delivery and valuation of ecosystem services on working lands in the Northeast.

The Northeast Ecosystem Services and Markets Listening Sessions are designed to:

• Gather reflections from participants on the northeast landscape assessment
• Build momentum on collaboration, research, and dissemination of products and strategies that will ultimately increase uptake of ecosystem services incentive programs
• Inform the design of future policies/programs
• Increase the relevance, accessibility, and profitability of these programs to northeast producers.  

By the end of these listening sessions, we hope to:

• Build a roadmap for how to connect resources identified in the Assessment to the users across government, land grants, and farmers.
• Identify the primary next steps to accomplish the “low hanging fruit” recommendations and needs outlined in the Assessment.
• Answer: “How we can use the data base to identify cross northeast opportunities for Extension/Research/Regulator collaboration”.
• Create a network of northeast professionals invested in working on this topic together.

Interested participants are asked to read and share the Landscape Assessment ahead of their chosen session. Register today!

Questions can be directed to NEED at [email protected].