Climate Adaptation Leadership Award Goes to...

I’ve always considered both the Roundtable and the Oldman Watershed great examples of landscape collaboration, where diverse partners work together to share information, promote good projects and ideas and accomplish great things. This month, the Obama Administration agreed and honored us, along with six other organizations and individuals as first-ever recipients of the Climate Adaptation Leadership Award for Natural Resources for outstanding leadership in advancing adaptation of the Nation’s valuable fish, wildlife and plant resources in a changing climate.

The Roundtable connects people to enhance the culture, communities, and conservation of the region. Our transboundary, large landscape effort provides a platform for diverse perspectives to share information, build knowledge and capacity, celebrate success, and catalyze new efforts and partnerships. We seek to achieve a shared vision for people and nature in the region.

The Roundtable’s three years of Adaptive Management Initiative (AMI) projects brought together creative partnerships to advance landscape and organizational resiliency to the changes we’re experiencing on the landscape and in our communities. It’s an honor to be nationally recognized and I applaud all of you for your participation in the Roundtable and providing the forum from which good ideas like AMI can grow.

One of the AMI projects recognized by this award is the Oldman Watershed Council’s “Supporting Watershed Adaptation by Building Connections.” This project exemplifies the goals of the Roundtable and the AMI: enhancing culture, community and conservation by building partnerships and connections in the Crown of the Continent landscape.

We’ll be exploring ideas of resiliency at our annual forum – landscape resiliency amidst record visitor use and how culture inspires landscape conservation. The Roundtable will highlight partnerships and explore key questions about culture, community and conservation in Fernie, British Columbia on October 13-14, 2016. We’d love your co-sponsorship of the conference; contact me for more information. We’ll soon post our draft agenda at www.crownroundtable.org.

Kim Davitt, Coordinator, Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent