The Regional Conservation Partnerships (RCP) Network Gathering is an inclusive forum for people from the Northeast and beyond to meet and share stories about collaborative landscape conservation. Together we are building reciprocal relationships with new people and sectors and scaling our work to conserve land as we create healthier, more just, climate-resilient communities.  

This year’s theme is Collaborating for Healthier Communities. Come explore the diverse elements of a healthy community and learn how, through collaboration, we can create a future where all people thrive. Sessions will focus on the environment’s direct impact on the health of communities and how climate change is putting pressure on all levels of society. 

JOIN US on November 14 from 8 AM – 4 PM at UMass Amherst to share how you, your collaborations, and your networks are advancing health, justice, and climate resilience. 

Why has climate change been so difficult for us to address? This talk will explore the problem from the point of view of how the brain works to make decisions. While climate change presents an enormous challenge, it is possible for us to call on what we know about the brain’s reward system to help us change our behaviors and to provide hope for a better future. 

Ann-Christine Duhaime, MD, is a senior pediatric neurosurgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Nicholas T. Zervas Distinguished Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School. She is the author of Minding the Climate: How Neuroscience Can Help Solve Our Environmental Crisis. Learn more about Dr. Duhaime’s work here. 

The 2024 RCP Network Gathering features two dozen sessions led by nearly 60 speakers along five integrated health themes: Physical and Mental Well-being, Listening and Connecting, Resilient Ecosystems, Integrated Land Use, and Diverse Partnerships. Session topics range from how RCPs are supporting the development of healthy, thriving communities to how climate change is impacting the work of healthcare professionals and why it should be a concern for conservationists. Several sessions will center themes of justice and belonging and elevate identities and perspectives historically underrepresented in the conservation movement. Join the discussion, learn from your peers, and share how your work is helping to create healthier communities! 

Read about the sessions here.

Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) individuals are invited to attend a free, special session and dinner on Wednesday, November 13, from 5:30 – 8 PM at the Campus Center, 10th Floor, UMass Amherst.  

This event is intended to help strengthen relationships and facilitate conversations on how the conservation community can be more welcoming, safe, and inclusive. Kolu Zigbi Consultants, Inc. will facilitate the evening’s program. Registration is required for this exclusive event. 

Learn More about Pre- and Post-Conference Events and Register here. 

DID YOU KNOW that 40% of attendees at the RCP Network Gathering are not connected with a Regional Conservation Partnership? With over 50 RCPs across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, chances are there is an active group near you. Conference attendees will have the chance to meet RCP leaders and learn more about RCPs in their region. Find your local RCP here! 

Take a break during the conference to slow down, awaken your senses, and connect with the natural world on a walk around the UMass campus green spaces. Regan Stacey, a mindfulness meditation teacher and forest therapy guide, will lead a mindful experience outdoors. All are welcome! Meet at the Registration Desk at 12:30 PM. Inclement weather cancels.

Gathering attendees are eligible to earn Continuing Education Credits from the following organizations: the Society of American Foresters will offer 4.5 Category 1 Continuing Forestry Education credits; and the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Nursing, 244 CMR 5.00, will provide 4 contact hours for attending the Keynote, and A1, B1, and C1 sessions. Remember to complete the appropriate sign-in sheets at the Registration desk to receive your credits!

Sign up for the RCP Network E-News! Receive updates about the 2024 Gathering, read inspiring stories about RCPs, learn about funding opportunities, and more! 

QUESTIONS? Please contact Highstead Regional Conservationist Katie Blake at kblake@highstead.net 

Katie Blake is a trained conservation biologist with over 20 years of experience in landscape ecology, environmental outreach, conservation planning, and scientific research. In her role as Regional Conservationist at Highstead, Katie supports RCPs across the Northeast in their efforts to increase the pace and scale of conservation by way of capacity building, network coordination, and leadership of various landscape-scale initiatives. Katie holds a master’s degree in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England and a BA in Environmental Studies from Mount Holyoke College. At home, Katie delights in tending to her homestead with her husband Jeremy and daughters Tziporah and Tahlia. 

Session A Speakers 

Session B Speakers 

Session C Speakers 

Why has climate change—a true existential threat to our planet—been so difficult for us to address? And, if we love nature so much, why haven’t we been able to summon the will to protect it? This talk will look at this problem from the point of view of how the brain works to make decisions based on the evolutionary history that determined the design of our neural equipment. While climate change presents an enormous challenge, it is not impossible, especially if we call on what we know about the brain’s reward system to help us change our own behaviors and those we influence to tackle this large-scale, intergenerational crisis, and to provide hope for a better future.  

Ann-Christine Duhaime, MD, is a senior pediatric neurosurgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Nicholas T. Zervas Distinguished Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School. Her neuroscience research investigates mechanisms, pathophysiology, imaging, and treatment of injury in the immature brain.  

Dr. Duhaime also has a longstanding interest in the relationship between brain and behavior, and in environmental issues. Her book, Minding the Climate, was published in 2022 (Harvard University Press). She is a Faculty Associate of the Harvard University Center for the Environment and was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute in 2016. She now serves as Associate Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for the Environment and Health and as Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Climate Change and Health.  

We sat down with Dr. Duhaime to learn more about her work and keynote address. 

You’re a pediatric neurosurgeon who specializes in trauma. What inspired you to begin working on the climate crisis? 

Dr. Ann-Christine Duhaime: I was always interested in the brain and how it works, and I have always been drawn to and interested in nature from early in life. Part of why I went into neurosurgery is that the brain is a really cool creation of nature—I don’t see the two as separate. I like people, so it was fun and rewarding to take care of people, especially kids.  

But there came a time, as climate change became more and more of an obvious and pressing threat, that I started to feel a contradiction between taking care of one child at a time and this catastrophic change in the world that is going to threaten every child. So I made a conscious decision to use what I had come to know about the brain to focus that perspective on the climate crisis.  

In your 2022 book, Minding the Climate, you explore how our brains evolved to prioritize short-term rewards over long-term consequences like the climate crisis, but that things like social rewards can be powerful change agents. What is something you were surprised to learn while writing this book? 

One thing that was surprising was how little (research) there was connecting climate change to the brain. For people in my profession, every decision that humans make, every action we’ve taken can be explained through the lens of how the brain operates. Your brain is constantly changing; it’s designed that way. But the question is: can we choose to have a greater influence on our own decisions and the decisions of others in light of this crisis?  

There are data that suggests there are strategies that have been used in other contexts that could be used in this context, and that while it will be a challenge, our brains are sufficiently flexible that they can change their decision-making priorities quite dramatically under the influence of things like facts and social influence.  

The theme of the 2024 Gathering is Collaborating for Healthier Communities. What should people expect to learn from your talk? 

Most people are heavily influenced by social context, the opinion of others, by reflecting what the norms are around them, by the approval of respected leaders in a community. What does that have to do with climate change and climate action? 

The kinds of behaviors we have to change are simply much less fun, much less rewarding than the alternative, which is the status quo. And because there are things we have to do that are not rewarding, how do you get people to do them? The overall equation must be more rewarding than not, or people won’t do it.  

I came to the conclusion looking at other difficult behavioral changes—addiction and the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014, which required a very rapid cultural change—that the things that worked involved the substitution of one reward for another. The reward in the climate world that we can substitute and that we have some control over is social reward. We can choose to deliberately find ways to capitalize on the high reward value of social change and social approval by bonding with like-minded people. 

At the 2023 Gathering, we heard from philanthropic and environmental justice leaders about the importance of working in partnership to address multiple goals beyond biodiversity conservation. In 2024, we will apply these lessons as we explore what makes a “healthy community.” Ecosystems are more resilient when their parts are restored. Similarly, advancing multiple objectives outside of conservation will take diverse voices, groups, sectors, and areas of expertise. 

Regional Conservation Partnerships (RCPs) help to increase the pace and scale of land conservation across property, town, state, and regional boundaries. Together we are building reciprocal relationships with new people and sectors, sharing and scaling the work outward, and helping to foster healthier, more just, climate-resilient communities. 

Over the past few decades, people across New England, the East Coast, and beyond have organized and advanced RCPs to increase the pace and scale of land protection and stewardship in service of a shared conservation vision across property, town, state, and sometimes regional boundaries. Highstead coordinates, researches, and convenes RCPs in networks, helping their members and RCPs innovate and accomplish more with regional partners like foundations, colleges and universities, conservation organizations, and state and federal agencies.   

Since forming and with Highstead’s support, the RCP Network has helped RCPs conserve more than 35,000 acres across the region and secure more than $23 million from grants, federal funding, and fundraising. At least 12 new RCPs have been established and more than 25 have advanced one or more stages of development through direct Network engagement. 

Highstead, a regional conservation and ecological stewardship nonprofit based in Redding, CT, serves as the host partner of the RCP Network and organizes the annual RCP Network Gathering with the support of a diverse steering committee. Highstead’s vision aligns with the Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities vision which calls for the permanent protection of 70% of New England as forests and 7% as farmlands by 2060 to ensure a thriving landscape and to support the communities who depend on it.  

We are committed to addressing injustices perpetrated on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and other historically marginalized communities. Since 2021, the RCP Network Gathering has centered on land justice. Any path to a healthier, more climate-resilient, and biodiverse future requires collaboration among diverse people and sectors to ensure everyone benefits. We acknowledge that the RCP Network Gathering has yet to fully reflect the diversity of people and interests that need to be involved in these discussions. We commit to continuing to build strong relationships with BIPOC individuals, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other historically underrepresented groups to elevate areas of shared interest toward a sustainable and just future for all.  

RELATED: Register for the free, BIPOC convening on November 13.  

Click here for directions to the Campus Center parking garage.

From the Parking Garage – As you enter the Parking Garage, proceed down the ramp and park on Levels 2-6. An enclosed entranceway leads directly from Level 2 onto the Campus Center Concourse. As you enter the Concourse, you will see information signs directing you to the location of your conference registration, which is on Level 1. If you are a hotel guest and looking for the Campus Center Lobby, proceed to the left and walk past the University Store; the elevators are on the right. The Hotel Lobby is on the third floor.

All attendees must register their car within 20 minutes of entering the parking garage at 1 Campus Center Way, Amherst, MA 01003.

Click here to reserve a discounted room at Hotel UMass. Discounted rooms will be available until October 16 or until they are filled.

Click here for a list of additional hotels.

Box lunches will be available at the Gathering, including vegetarian and gluten-free options. You may also purchase additional items at the UMass food court located on the 1st floor of the Campus Center.

Click here for a list of local restaurants.