The RCP Network Gathering
The annual Regional Conservation Partnership (RCP) Network Gathering is a FREE, one-day conference that brings together people advancing collaborative landscape conservation along with their allies and advocates. The Gathering is a place to connect with colleagues, meet new partners, share successes and challenges, and learn new skills. This event supports the growth of RCPs, promotes cross-disciplinary partnerships, and helps advance the pace and practice of landscape conservation throughout the Northeast and beyond.
At the 2024 Gathering, we asked the question, What makes a healthy community? This year, we will explore the crucial intersection of conservation, housing, and justice, and the importance of strong partnerships in our ongoing work.
Regional Conservation Partnerships
Regional Conservation Partnerships (RCPs) help to increase the pace and scale of land conservation across municipal, state, and international boundaries. Together, we are building reciprocal relationships, sharing and scaling our work, and helping to foster more resilient and just communities.
Over the past few decades, people throughout the Northeast have organized and developed RCPs to increase the pace and scale of collaborative landscape conservation. Highstead coordinates, researches, and convenes RCPs in networks, helping their members and RCPs innovate and accomplish more with regional partners, including foundations, higher education, 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 foundation grants and federal funding. 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
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. Highstead supports the Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities vision which calls for the permanent protection of 80% of New England as forests and farmlands by 2060 to ensure a thriving landscape and to support the communities who depend on it.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ)
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.
“The Gathering is centered on justice and looking at conservation through that lens. It puts us where the conservation movement is going and gives people the opportunity to understand their work in a broader context. And it doesn’t have to fall into a strict definition of an RCP; you get to learn about all sorts of collaborative efforts. You’re with a group of people who understands that.”