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.

Nicole Gross-Camp is a senior conservation strategist with over two decades of experience as a conservation social scientist with a focus on the intersections of governance, human wellbeing, and biodiversity conservation. Throughout her career, she has collaborated with a diverse array of shareholders, from government officials and national park managers on a payment for ecosystem services project to local communities and small NGOs on community forest management. She is a skilled facilitator, seasoned field researcher, and passionate advocate of participatory, bottom-up approaches.

Grace Haynes comes with a layered background of forest entomology and community engagement. After several years of experience in ecological research as a field and laboratory technician, she received her master’s in the University of Minnesota’s forest entomology lab in 2021. Since then, she has relocated to upstate New York to work on local challenges in environmental conservation. She enjoys combining her two areas of expertise to make entomological research more accessible to all audiences through scientific outreach.

Darren Josey has more than 14 years of experience in the outdoor industry with brands like Vibram, Polartec, and NEMO Equipment. His goal in starting First Seed Sown was to share this knowledge with other BIPOC businesspeople and municipalities to increase access to the outdoors for all. The Adventure Gap is very real when it comes to outdoor participation; however, it is even more extreme when you look at who is working at outdoor industry companies. Their first municipal program, The Great Malden Outdoors, launched in May.

Christine Laporte is Director of the Northern Appalachian-Acadian Program at the Wildlands Network. She holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies, with a double concentration in zoology and visual art, from Warren Wilson College, and a master’s in wildlife conservation from Yale University’s School of the Environment. She has extensive experience managing regional conservation and research initiatives, teaching college-level experiential field studies, and urban youth environmental education.

Mike Mosley is the Trails Manager for the Pemigewasset Ranger District of the White Mountain National Forest and is responsible for recreation trails management. He relocated to the White Mountains in 2015 after leading AmeriCorps crews on public lands in the western U.S. He is dedicated to stewarding public lands through collaborative partnerships and has worked with a wide variety of federal agencies, non-profit organizations, and volunteers during his time with the Forest Service. 

Nancy Patch is co-founder of Cold Hollow to Canada RCP and a board member for 16 years. She has a BS in forestry, a master’s in education from the University of Vermont, and an MS in plant and soil science from Texas A&M Kingsville. She has been a practicing forester for nearly 40 years and recently retired from the State of Vermont, where she was a service forester for 17 years.

Regan Stacey is an artist, writer, and educator who brings humans and nature together for personal, collective, and planetary well-being. She is co-founder of The Forest Therapy School, a forest therapy guide training program, and the voice behind The Earthsong Project, offering guided meditative walks, retreats, and workshops. She is a former Lyme Land Trust board member and currently serves on the coordinating committee of the Eightmile River Wild and Scenic Watershed. She guides forest bathing walks in Lyme and is the founding facilitator of the LLT Tree Collective, a teen conservation and stewardship club.

Christopher Thayer is a 35-year staff member of the Appalachian Mountain Club, where he serves as Senior Director of External Affairs and Contracting. He is responsible for developing and maintaining productive partnerships that provide the foundation for delivering high-quality mission services and representing AMC in New Hampshire on policy-related matters.

Bryan Wentzell has 23 years of experience in land conservation in Maine and the Northeast. He is the Executive Director of the Maine Mountain Collaborative and Exemplary Forestry Management, the non-profit manager for the Exemplary Forestry Investment Fund. Previously, he worked with the Appalachian Mountain Club as the Maine Policy and Program Director. He received a BA in environmental studies from Middlebury College.

Al Bellenchia is Executive Director and CEO of Columbia-Greene Habitat for Humanity in NY, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2023. Under his leadership, CGHFH is evolving to build more often and to provide a greater diversity of homes and services to average-wage and lower-income residents. He has global experience in strategic planning, marketing, management, and organizational development, and has worked with for-profit and non-profit organizations of many sizes and specializes in driving growth. He has served on numerous boards and frequently speaks on housing, organizational development, and management issues.

Harald Bredesen earned his master’s degree in organizational and social psychology at the London School of Economics and has 15-plus years of experience in international and local development, working with stakeholders to build resilient communities. At GrowSmart Maine, he works in partnership with municipalities, community leaders, local organizations, and others to create thriving communities for current and future generations. His work takes him to the intersection of where housing, conservation, economic development, and climate impact all meet in rural Maine.

Cynthia Carbone started her career as a health education teacher and coordinator, progressing to assistant professor and School Health Program Coordinator at Springfield College. With over 14 years of experience at Holyoke Public Schools, she began as the Wellness Coordinator at Dean Technical High School. She briefly left for a leadership role elsewhere before returning as Holyoke’s Director of Health, Wellness, and Nursing. She has managed numerous grants, led the School Community Health Advisory Council, collaborated on the HEAL initiative, and developed impactful school-based policies that have been adopted across the state.

Brett Ciccotelli is First Light’s core team member focusing on return. He works closely with the members of the Wabanaki Commission on Land and Stewardship and First Light organizations in their shared goal of growing land ownership and access for Wabanaki Communities. In his role supporting the return of Wabanaki land to Wabanaki people, he regularly works with teams of Indigenous leaders, non-native land trust staff, and private landowners.

Jason Comcowich worked as a chef for many years before joining Nuestras Raices as the Development Director. He managed and taught hundreds of students and volunteers food skills, from cultivating and growing fruits and vegetables to preparing seasonal and local cuisine for diverse groups of people from all over the world. He has participated in urban food activism, helping different community groups reclaim vacant urban lots for community gardens.

Brad Compton has more than 20 years of experience modeling connectivity, ecological integrity, and species habitat for applied conservation. He has had major roles in conceptual design and implementation of several landscape-scale products, including Massachusetts Conservation Assessment and Prioritization System and the Designing Sustainable Landscapes Project where he has been a principal since its inception in 2010.

Katie Darr serves as a liaison between the New York, Vermont, and Quebec Citizen Advisory Committees, the Lake Champlain Basin Program, state agencies, and stakeholder groups. Katie is an interdisciplinary social scientist with a focus on collaborative natural resource management and community empowerment. She earned a BA in biology and environmental studies from Wesleyan University and an MS in marine resource management from Oregon State University. She also holds a professional certificate in Sustainable Tourism Destination Management from The George Washington University.

Brian Donahue is Professor Emeritus of American environmental studies at Brandeis University and a farm and forest policy consultant. He holds a PhD in history from the Brandeis program. He co-founded and directed Land’s Sake, a non-profit community farm in Weston, MA, and now co-owns and manages a farm in western Massachusetts. He is the author of Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town, and The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord. He is co-author of Wildlands and Woodlands and A New England Food Vision.

Jamey Fidel is General Counsel and Forest and Wildlife Program Director with the Vermont Natural Resources Council. In his capacity at VNRC, he coordinates legal, forest, wildlife, and land use-related policy and programs, including policy work in the Vermont Legislature and through the Forest Roundtable, a quarterly meeting of diverse stakeholders focused on forest policy, forest management, and conservation issues in Vermont. He also works with local communities promoting conservation planning, zoning, and non-regulatory strategies for forestland and wildlife habitat conservation.

David Foster is an ecologist, Director Emeritus of the Harvard Forest, and President Emeritus of the Highstead Foundation. He co-founded the Wildlands and Woodlands Initiative in 2005 and was lead writer of Wildlands in New England: Past, Present, and Future in 2023. He has written and edited books including Thoreau’s Country: Journey Through a Transformed Landscape; Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1,000 Years of Change in New England; Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the Edge; and A Meeting of Land and Sea: The Nature and Future of Martha’s Vineyard.

Abby Fullem is an associate at the Consensus Building Institute, where she supports multi-stakeholder efforts by developing equitable processes, strengthening collaborative capacity, and helping groups navigate through conflict. She worked in environmental conflict resolution in the western United States with ranchers, tribal representatives, scientists, and government agencies to co-manage watersheds. Now she helps groups work collaboratively on environmental and public policy issues such as land use, climate resilience, transportation, renewable energy, housing, and water quality.

Brian Hall works at the Harvard Forest and as a consultant where he analyzes data, makes maps, and communicates scientific information to land conservationists across New England. His work combines his interests in nature, art, and the scientific truth to help society protect the lands that are most important for plants, animals, and people.

Connor Horton is committed to tackling some of the most pressing issues at the intersection of biodiversity loss, climate change, and sustainable economic development. As author and lead of The Nature Conservancy in Maine’s business engagement strategies, he works alongside private and public sector leaders to advance sustainable economies through collaboration, tech enablement, research, entrepreneurship, and targeted funding. Prior to joining TNC in 2019, Connor spent five years working as an Arabic linguist and intelligence professional in the U.S. Army. He holds an MBA and an MS in business analytics from Indiana University.

Sarita Hudson is Senior Director of Strategy and Development at the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts. Her work has focused on environmental health, climate change, violence prevention, and social justice activism, both local and with an international scope. A fluent Spanish speaker, she has traveled widely, presenting at conferences in Latin America and Africa and serving as a program director of a Mexico-based non-profit.

Scott Jackson is an extension professor whose primary responsibility is to develop and implement integrated research and extension projects in collaboration with conservation practitioners. His interests include wildlife ecology and conservation, wetland assessment and monitoring, impacts of roads and highways on wildlife, and landscape-based ecological assessment. His research projects include the Conservation Assessment and Prioritization System, Designing Sustainable Landscapes, North Atlantic Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative, wetlands assessment and monitoring, and ecosystem-focused climate adaptation.

Ana Jaramillo works for the Holyoke Health Center as the Community Engagement Specialist. She is a Colombian Latina co-owner of Tamales Exquisitos, a food science engineer, a certified community health worker, a community engagement specialist, a Let’s Move Hampden County 5210 program coordinator, and a chef. She is on the steering committee of the Pioneer Valley Asthma Coalition.

Theresa Kerchner is the Executive Director of the Kennebec Land Trust. She earned a master’s degree in ecology and environmental science from the University of Maine in 2002. In 2009, she led an effort with the Maine Forest Service to found the Kennebec Woodland Partnership. In 2013, with support from the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation, KLT and five statewide partners launched Local Wood WORKS which aims to advance and promote sustainable forestry, regional wood markets, and landscape-level forestland conservation.

Tammi Kozuch is a registered nurse whose work has focused on HIV care and addiction treatment at the Holyoke Health Center since 2011. In early 2022, she took a new role working with a telehealth start-up company as their Clinical Director where she oversaw care teams that treat opioid addiction for patients in five states. In late 2023, she transitioned back to Holyoke Health Center as the Chief of Strategy where she oversees strategic planning, community relationships, new ventures, and critical projects that expand the health center’s strategic vision and offer new services to patients.

Nancy Patch is co-founder of Cold Hollow to Canada RCP and a board member for 16 years. She has a BS in forestry, a master’s in education from the University of Vermont, and an MS in plant and soil science from Texas A&M Kingsville. She has been a practicing forester for nearly 40 years and recently retired from the State of Vermont, where she was a service forester for 17 years.

Ethan Plunkett has two decades of GIS, conservation, and spatial and statistical programming experience, including building statistical models to validate the Conservation Assessment and Prioritization System and working on the Designing Sustainable Landscapes project, where he built models to simulate urban growth and construct conservation cores. He has been a part of the Designing Sustainable Landscapes project from the start.

Darren J. Ranco is a citizen of the Penobscot Nation, professor of anthropology, chair of Native American Programs, and faculty fellow at the Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine. He has a master’s in environmental law from Vermont Law School and a PhD in social anthropology from Harvard University. His research focuses on the ways in which Indigenous Nations resist environmental destruction by using Indigenous science and diplomacies to protect their natural and cultural resources. He teaches Indigenous intellectual property rights classes, research ethics, environmental justice, and tribal governance.

Alex Redfield is Co-Director of the Integrated Policy Program for Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities and Food Solutions New England. He previously managed Farm Viability and Farmland Protection programs for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, and served as Director of Farmer Training for Cultivating Community in Portland, ME.

Steve Rosenberg is the Hudson Valley Alliance for Housing and Conservation project’s co-convener, the former Senior Vice President of Scenic Hudson, and the Executive Director of the Scenic Hudson Land Trust. He served on the board of the Land Trust Alliance for nine years. He has led many efforts bringing land, equity, and conservation together at the regional scale, including authoring the NYC/Hudson Valley Foodshed Conservation Plan, launching Scenic Hudson’s River Cities Program, and leading efforts to transform the Hudson’s post-industrial waterfronts into safe and inviting public places.

Shelby Semmes serves as Vice President for New England for Trust for Public Land, leading the teams delivering mission across Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. She lives in Central Vermont, with her husband and sons. 

Julia Solomon has 20 years of experience facilitating group dialogue and planning processes for nonprofits, universities, and governments, and brings a scientifically grounded, interdisciplinary approach to projects. She has worked extensively on land and water conservation, land use planning, climate action planning and community engagement. She is the principal of Shadbush Consulting, which provides tailored services to organizations as they grow and change. Shadbush Consulting specializes in supporting collaboratives and cross-sector initiatives with a particular focus on climate resilience and community conservation.

Bryan Wentzell has 23 years of experience in land conservation in Maine and the Northeast. He is the Executive Director of both the Maine Mountain Collaborative and Exemplary Forestry Management, the non-profit manager for the Exemplary Forestry Investment Fund. Previously, he worked with the Appalachian Mountain Club as the Maine Policy and Program Director. He received a BA in environmental studies from Middlebury College.