From Woodstock, Vermont and a distant continent come important separate perspectives on the state of conservation in the US. Rolf Diamant, superintendent of five national parks who retired this month after a nearly four-decade career with the National Park Service, details the groundbreaking changes underway in the agency that could forever tarnish one of America’s greatest ideas (Letter From Woodstock). The workforce has been gutted, and the President’s budget envisions $1 billion in budget cuts and the potential transfer of certain units to the states (opposed by the bipartisan Public Lands Caucus), all of which Diamant says amounts to nothing more than “one of the greatest acts of civic vandalism in the nation’s history.” Jody Gunn, Executive Director of the Australia Land Conservation Alliance, crisscrossed the US over five weeks last fall at the height of the election season and, while acknowledging the uncertainty surrounding conservation funding, came away inspired by the private lands conservation movement here (Winston Churchill Trust). From our use of easements and collaborative conservation efforts to land back initiatives and innovative conservation finance mechanisms, Gunn provides an important perspective on the American contribution to land conservation (as complementary as Gunn is, there is as much for us to take away from the Australian example). We can take both warning and inspiration from these accounts as we confront the challenges we face today in financing conservation.
We wish you a happy and productive June. Ours begins with our 20th Conservation Finance Boot Camp at Yale University next week, and ends with the 3rd Annual European Land Conservation Finance Boot Camp in northern England.
Peter Howell
Executive Director
The Conservation Finance Network
