The researchers observed a significant inverse association between higher levels of green cover and lower direct healthcare costs, including the finding that individuals living near the most green space had adjusted health care costs of $374 per person per year less than those living near the least green space. Those in the highest decile of residential green cover were more likely to be white, older, male, and have higher education and income levels. Even after adjusting for sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors, the findings were robust.

To quantify the green space, the researchers utilized the Normalized Differentiation Vegetation Index (NDVI) satellite data. NDVI data “reflects the greenness found in satellite images of land cover and has been commonly used in the geospatial assessment of vegetation presence and viability as well as in the study of green space and human health.” Healthcare costs were obtained from the internal Cost Management Information System which compiles data from health service centers (hospitals, labs, etc.). 

One key strength of this study is the size and diversity of the population where everyone shares the same health care system. Differentiations in health care access are greatly mitigated as all members of the Kaiser Permanente Northern California system have virtually equal access. Another strength is the variety of land use types and topographies over the large area (25,000 sq miles) covered. The green cover-cost relationship observed is not constrained to specific landscapes or geographic settings. 

These findings support several previous studies on the health implications of green space and they exemplify not only the health benefit but also the economic impact of living near more green space. Researchers noted the existing body of literature that ties living near more green spaces to short and long term health benefits. High levels of green cover have been associated with better mental health, maternal-fetal outcomes, and fewer occurrences of cardiovascular disease, respiratory conditions, and mortality. This study supports nationwide efforts to incorporate green spaces into residential neighborhoods and urban greening.

EBird Training mini-grants of $500 were awarded to eight Regional Conservation Partnerships (RCPs) so they can host workshops that train participants in how to use eBird, a virtual community science platform and database for documenting bird observations.

The goal of the mini-grants is to empower RCP leaders to train their partners to use eBird effectively for land conservation within their respective landscapes, creating an ambassador network to promote the effectiveness of this birding tool for conservation, monitoring, and community engagement. These grants were awarded through the Northeast Bird Habitat Conservation Initiative (NBHCI) as a part of a broader funding effort by the group to train RCP Network leaders to use eBird data and bird-friendly forestry techniques, and to support partners with effective management implementation on ecologically important forests, grasslands, and farmlands for at‐risk bird species in the Northeast. 

The Northeast Bird Habitat Conservation Initiative (NBHCI) is a collaborative effort between The Regional Conservation Partnership (RCP) Network, Audubon groups, Highstead, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The eight awarded grant projects propose a variety of both virtual and in-person workshops taking place across the Northeast in CT, MA, ME, NH, VT. Read below for more information about the recipients and their proposed workshops:

Cold Hollow to Canada, in partnership with their local conservation commissions, will host a series of eBird workshops in northern Vermont to support the RCP’s community science efforts. The workshop will include an online introduction to the platform followed by an in-person event.

The High Peaks Initiative and Maine Mountain Collaborative, in collaboration with the Maine Audubon Society, The Wilderness Society, and the High Peaks Alliance, will conduct an eBird workshop in conjunction with their annual Rangeley Birding Festival to train more birders to use eBird. They will also conduct marketing and outreach to birders across the Rangeley and High Peaks region of Maine in an effort to make the Rangeley region a premier birding destination. 

The Woodcock Nature Center will host an in-person workshop on behalf of the Hudson to Housatonic RCP as a way to introduce the eBird app to the community and encourage ongoing use of the platform as a means to engage with the environment, while collectively gathering crucial bird data at Chestnut Meadows. Participants will also learn how their eBird data can be to use to preserve similar land areas in the future.

The Housatonic Valley Association will host an online eBird workshop for land trust partners in the Litchfield Hills Greenprint Collaborative with the goal of leveraging eBird as a land conservation and restoration tool and promoting its use amongst community members. The workshop will teach land trust partners how to use eBird, encouraging them to incorporate eBird into their land conservation toolkit, and illustrate the utility of the app for engaging with younger generations. 

The Kent Land Trust (KLT) will train their Stewardship Committee and interested members of the public how to use eBird to observe and collect information about birds on KLT properties and land outside their network. They also aim to use the KLT Farm, its eBird hotspot, and its restoration project as a case study. 

The Massachusetts Coastal Pine Barrens Partnership, in collaboration with Mass Audubon, Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance, and Wareham Land Trust, plans to run a beginning birding workshop with an emphasis on using eBird and the significance of the data collection, followed by three in-person workshops to demonstrate its use in the field. During field sessions, participants will learn about key habitats in the coastal pine barrens region and put their new knowledge into practice with on-site technical support.

The Mid-Champlain Valley RCP will bring together RCP partners, made up of multiple local Conservation Commissions, and teachers with whom they have collaborated in the past, to learn about eBird. They will host an in-person eBird workshop that will teach participants to host trainings in their own schools and towns, show more people how to use eBird, and allow the RCP to develop and share combined bird knowledge to better understand their landscape.

In partnership with Antioch University New England, Quabbin to Cardigan will host a four-part online workshop series geared toward novice and competent eBird users, orienting participants to the eBird platform with a focus on regional conservation applications. They hope to raise greater awareness of eBirding in the Monadnock Region and beyond, identifying how eBird data can be integrated into decision-making processes in education, research, outreach, and conservation.

The Harvard Forest and Amherst College researchers found that communities in the lowest income bracket, and communities with the highest proportions of people of color, have access to only about half as much protected land near where they live. These disparities persist across urban, suburban, and rural communities, and across decades.

But Harvard Forest authors Lucy Lee and Jonathan Thompson – with colleagues Neenah Estrella-Luna of Boston, and Kate Sims and Margot Lurie (’21) of Amherst College – didn’t stop at identifying the inequities in conservation. They also created tools that will be part of the solution.

First, they looked at lands that rank highly with conventional conservation criteria – such as wildlife habitat, drinking water, and carbon sequestration – and mapped their relationship with lands that rank highly for human environmental justice criteria – including communities with low income, high percentages of people of color, and high percentages of English language learners. They found that the two don’t tend to overlap.

They created a new prioritization system to help state agencies and conservation organizations identify specific opportunities for future conservation based on environmental justice criteria, and built a free, online mapping tool to highlight these opportunities on the landscape. 

Although their analysis focused on conservation solutions for currently undeveloped land, they also pointed to the importance of restoring existing developed land, including improving forest canopy in marginalized communities, and conservation partnerships that can increase access to existing open space. 

Last year’s focus on Land Justice left many in attendance at the RCP Network Gathering with a heightened awareness of the need to put justice and equity at the center of their conservation work. 

It has also sparked conversations about how to actually do the work of advancing land justice and equity while meeting their core mission work of conservation. For example, RCP Network members have been asking how we can more effectively amplify the voices and support the communities most impacted by injustice and climate change through our land conservation efforts, while others of you have been working with these impacted communities for years.

For the 2022 RCP Network Gathering, we would like you and your partners to have a chance to share your insights, projects, relationship-building stories, and lessons. Tell us who you are learning from and how you are together advancing Climate Justice and Resilience — for making land more accessible, more useful for nature and people, and more resilient to the impacts of climate change for the benefit of others. 

We invite you to submit proposals and nominations for Gathering panels, webinars, and field trips in the weeks leading up to the Gathering. Please complete and submit a separate form for each webinar, panel, and field trip you wish us to consider.

We are offering three ways for you to participate – please review all options and apply to the program or programs where you think you or your partners can add the most value.

Two panels at the November 17th, 2022 Gathering will focus on Climate Justice and Resilience, through the eyes of those who have experienced climate injustice, addressed injustice, or focused resiliency efforts to the benefit of marginalized communities. Please note that panelists will need to commit to at least a couple of hours on November 17th and a few hours before the event for preparation and rehearsal. 

If you would like to participate as a panelist during the November 17th RCP Network Gathering, or know someone who would be a great addition, please fill out the form linked below. Please review the form requirements before you begin filling it out.

As part of this year’s Gathering, we would like to offer one to three pre-Gathering webinars held during the weeks leading up to the November 17 Gathering. These webinars will ideally highlight RCPs’ and RCP Network members’ activities in the areas of Land Justice, Climate Justice, and Climate Resilience. Themes may include:

Click the link below to propose a webinar. Please review the form requirements before you begin filling it out.

Occurring during the months leading up to the Gathering and through the end of 2022, these are opportunities for RCP Network members to organize and convene on-site walks and talks that explore one or more of the webinar themes (see above). Highstead and the RCP Network staff will help to promote the field trips but the entire event— logistics planning, promotion, costs, and execution–is the responsibility of the field trip lead.