SALCC Steering Committee Update

Prepared and presented byVern Herr and Brett Boston

ForU.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution

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WelcomeIntroductions

Roll Call

Ken McDermond

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Today’s Agenda: Team Review & Validation of Key Themes

1. Review web survey highlights

2. Review steering committee interview highlights

3. Review and discuss an integrated summary of key expectations

4. Facilitated discussion reviewing the results and probing: a. Final clarification: anything we missed or

mischaracterizedb. 3-5 key points that HAVE to be considered in the plan c. Concerns and/or boundaries that must be considered?

5. Review of the Planning Team Meeting draft agenda Call in: 866-720-8724 Passcode: 2917595

SALCC Web Survey Highlights

Who Responded?

• Total Started Survey: 107• Total Completed Survey: 93 (86.9%)

• Breakdown– 45 Land/Water/Species Management– 16 Academic– 9 Regulatory– 1 Advocacy– 1 Heritage Manger– 3 Funding

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Decisions They Make

• Multi-State: 30%• Statewide 15%• Intra-State/Regional 25%• Project Level 20%• N/A 10%

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First the good news

• Strong overall support for LCC concept– 76.6% agree or strongly agree they are familiar with the

purpose and charter of SALCC– 58% described themselves as BOTH a partner (34%)

and customer (7.5%) • SALCC is seen as “leader” by those working with

multiple LCCs• … “If we can’t do it in the SE, it can’t be done”

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Some clouds• Strong start, but a sense of lost momentum

• Differentiators needed! Another joint venture?

• Skepticism LCCs will be sustainable

• Manager comfort with species management

• Political hostility to climate change

• Partnership fatigue

• When asked to rate SALCC progress 50% said they didn’t have enough information

• 36% said not enough communication Call in: 866-720-8724 Passcode: 2917595

What key natural or cultural resource QUESTIONS will your organization need answers for in the next 3-5 years?

• Projected impacts of climate change and urban growth?

• What and where are our priority species and habitats?

• How can managers help wildlife populations adapt?

• How to make solid conservation decisions with limited resources?

• How to balance conservation while sustaining economic & population growth?

• Understanding a regional landscape perspective, overlaps and knowledge gaps

• Will landscape data easily downscale for local management and decision-making?

What goals and areas of focus must SALCC consider in the next 3 to 5 years?

• Communicate SALCC’s mission, vision and success measures

• Show where focused conservation efforts maximize ROI

• Remove barriers limiting partner conservation efforts

• ID priority conservation areas by habitat type and optimal strategies

• Facilitate regional dialogue on conservation issues and priorities

• Facilitate information transfer between partners and other LCCs

• Facilitate data sharing, GIS and other standards discussions

• Engage public-private landowners to improve regional conservation

What criteria should guide prioritization of SALCC goals and objectives?

• SALCC applied science should be unique; unavailable elsewhere

• Don’t duplicate successful work of others– Use existing alliances, studies and partnerships first

• Give credit to contributing partners• Focus on portable, compatible and sharable data• Outputs need to be useful for front line decision

makers

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How will your organization measure SALCC success?• SALCC advanced conservation priorities that were either unknown

or were beyond individual partner capacity to address

• Better understanding & consistency of Federal Agency decisions

• Measurable progress within 5 years towards stated goals

• Improved health and sustainability of population or habitat targets

• Implementable recommendations

• Improved interaction between researchers and managers

• SALCC facilitated forums with productive collaboration and action

• Improved 2-way understandings between partners

• Positive return on the time, treasure and/or talent invested in SALCC

Risks of an LCC approach?

• Vague or poorly understood objectives• Pressure to spend funds before plans are complete• Agency budget battles + an uncertain funding

future• Infighting between species and habitat groups• Differing partner missions• Competition with existing partnerships• Results may take time to see• Partner fatigue

Please rate the importance of the following elements to SALCC conservation planning

Please rate the value of the following SALCC Research or potential research areas to your organization

What significant landscape research gaps could we be overlooking?

• Key drivers of urbanization and development• Human dimensions and socioeconomics• Private landowners issues and concerns• Impacts of alternative energy production• Potential impact of exotics and invasives• Linking coastal ecosystems• Air & water quality

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How can SALCC improve communication and coordination with our partners?

• Avoid over-reliance on the website• Communicate successes where SALCC outputs

lead to different/better decisions• Develop targeted messages for specific audiences– Test messages with non-scientists to be sure they are

understandable, straightforward, and practical

• Publish a quarterly e-newsletter• Host bi-monthly Q&A webinars

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SALCC Web Survey Questions?

SALCC Steering Committee Interview Highlights

Who Responded?

• 18 Steering Committee members and recommended guests

• Breakdown– 10 Federal Agencies– 4 State Agencies– 2 Non-government Agencies– 2 Private Landowners

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Key Themes

• Strong parallels with web survey• Strong support expressed for LCC concept and SALCC• Some implementation concerns• Clarify what SALCC IS and what it ISN’T• Highest level view: not another bird partnership

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Barriers to implementation

• Uncertainty what implementation will look like• Limited national LCC guidance• “This too shall pass” perceptions• Interagency rivalries and missions• An uncertain financial future• Perceptions of uncertain support from Interior• Political opposition to climate change• Some managers prefer a species focus

Recommendations

• Set short, medium and long term SALCC priorities• Speak the benefits of having a landscape view• Engage private landowners (75% of SE land!)• Promote greater data and process standardization• Iterative 2-way dialogue with partners to ensure

SALCC products are useful and valuable• Focus on filling gaps and removing barriers • Make life easier for front line decision makers

Suggested Guiding Principles• Does a proposed action duplicate the successful work of others?

• Are SALCC products truly unique? Things nobody else can deliver?

• Do recommendations clearly identify options that yield the greatest long-term conservation payoffs (not necessarily the easiest things to achieve?)

• Are we working on outputs/deliverables our partners truly value?

• Have we selected priorities that are big, hairy and audacious…but achievable?

• Do SALCC deliverables directly impact landscape-level conservation?

• Do SALCC deliverables incorporate uncertainty over time into decision-making?

• Do SALCC recommendations highlight WHERE action is needed and

• Do SALCC recommendations avoid specifying the TYPES OF ACTION needed?

• Can SALCC state a shared vision for natural and cultural resources looks like?

• Do proposed goals support management and implementation?

On the Ground Needs

• Vulnerability assessments and adaptation strategies• Provide insight that spans habitat, taxa and species• Show me how what I’m doing fits into the big picture• Produce science at varying an appropriate scales to

answer local resource management questions• Review habitat baselines and predict how

distributions are likely to change in response.• How will management need to be altered to

respond?

SALCC Steering Committee Interview Questions?

Key Partner Expectations

Provide Decision Support• Provide perspective and insight to decision makers who are trying to make increasingly

complex landscape level decisions in a sound manner with greater confidence.

• Provide decision-support tools for addressing priority land purchases that connect critical conservation overlays

• Provide structured methodologies that allow managers to understand the emerging trends impacting conservation lands, ecosystems, urban impacts and water utilization and forest cover.

• Deliver tools that optimize partner conservation strategies and integrate management decisions across disciplines and perspectives.

• Develop support tools for integrating private sector land holders into conservation planning. These tools should provide an economic growth perspective and sustainability. (Forest cover, biomass, etc.)

• Provide decision support tools at variety of scales:– Provide policy-level support services and tools for key decision makers– Provide smaller, simpler translations/scales of these services and tools for field staff utilization

Prioritize Conservation Actions

• Help partners prioritize conservation investments to maximize impact

• Create a forum that enables prioritization and integration of limited resources from partners to make better conservation decisions

• SALCC can act as a conservation investment advisor _ assisting with the prioritization of investments by providing resource investment tools and guidance to highlight partner projects or potential new projects that yield the highest conservation returns.

Facilitate and Coordinate Partners in Collaborative Effort (1)

• SALCC should see things at a broader scale and link partners to create broader landscape synergies.

• Facilitate more extended regional partnerships by connecting separate initiatives

• Facilitate dialogue among Federal regulators (establish interagency MOUS that enable rapid implementation of consensus decisions and provide confidence to private sector partners of consistency.)

• Help partners cooperate beyond existing state and regional boundaries to accomplish greater conservation results

• Improve coordination between USGS climate science centers and LCC partners

• Provide structures that enable controlled, logical growth of partnerships and ease of participation

Facilitate and Coordinate Partners in Collaborative Effort (2)

• Seamlessly integrate cooperative actions to existing partnerships (SARP) and joint-ventures

• Identify and assist in removing the barriers between individual partners to achieve broader conservation accomplishments

• Identify and create new partnerships that fill essential landscape conservation planning gaps.

• SALCC must be a value-added organization that harnesses the collective science and influence of its members and partners, and focuses on priority issues.

• Conduct ongoing dialogue with partners to ensure alignment of products and services with partner expectations

Interpret and Analyze Current Knowledge and Data, then Fill Gaps

• Focus on coordinating and integrating existing data, identify gaps in data and develop data to fill those gaps

• SALCC will effectively unify regional efforts by becoming the umbrella by integrating data and providing communications about what is going on in the region

• Link seamlessly with USGS Climate Change Centers• Provide services for clearly defining landscape perspective,

overlaps and knowledge gaps• Serve all data via web services that are easy access and enable

non-climate modelers to use with ease. • Provide standards and platform access that enhance data

sharing and compatibility re: climate change• Uncover gaps in existing data to avoid re-creating

Serve as Ambassador and Exercise Diplomacy

• Be seen as an honest neutral broker working toward greater regional cooperation without seeking credit for the work of others.

• Ensure that partners effort and work are front and center in all communications

• Ensure cross-LCC dialogue, and best practice sharing so lessons learned can be shared among all LCCs

• SALCC will coordinate effectively with other LCCs and Federal Agencies on behalf of the partners.

Work at Appropriate Scales

• Ensure the data models include a priority species overlay.

• SALCC needs to focus on big picture landscape views that can be scaled down; not small that we try to scale up.

• Avoid overly-specific species and habitat overlays

Key Partner ExpectationQuestions?

Discussion

Discussion: Final Review

• Final clarification: anything we missed or mischaracterized?

• What 3-5 key points that HAVE to be considered in the plan

• What concerns and/or boundaries must be considered?

Proposed AgendaDecember 6-7

Prepared and presented byVern Herr and Brett Boston

ForU.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 Day One8:00 AM Welcome and Overview Ken McDermond8:10 AM Introductions Planning Team8:20 AM Overview of the Session Group Solutions, Inc.

Review the AgendaBuild a team report card for the sessionDetermine how we will make decisions during the session

8:30 AM Mission Statement CreationDevelop and refine the SALCC Mission.Review the current draft missionModify, if necessaryReturn at end of session to ensure fit

9:30 AM Scope the SALCC Strategic PlanReview the survey data and analyze major themes and feedbackDiscuss strategic themesSelect Key Messages from the survey data that our plan should respond to

10:15 AM Break

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 Day One

10:30 Continue Scope of SALCC Strategic PlanAdd additional insights and scopeClearly Define SALCC’s RoleReach closure on plan elements

11:00 Develop the Values for directing strategic effort

SALCC Values represent the strategic components defining the SALCC behavioral roadmap for success of the partnership. Values are traits or qualities that are considered worthwhile; they represent an organization’s highest priorities and deeply held driving forces. A strong organization needs to establish values that it lives by

Noon Lunch

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 Day One1:00 PM Develop Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles are the strategic elements that help organizations decide how to achieve the mission and make choices.

2:00 PM Develop the SALCC Strategic Plan

Generate the 5 to 8 Key StrategiesDefine the scope of each

Define an end-state for each

2:45 Break 3:00 PM Continue Developing SALCC Strategies

4:00 PM Develop Goals for implementing each strategy5:00 PM Adjourn

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 Day Two8:00 AM Review Day Ones Products

Review progress

Finish Goals, if necessary

Modify products as indicated

Make notes of options, choices and elements requiring further investigation

9:30 AM Prioritize Products and ServicesPrioritize Service Offerings

First 18 months18 months to 3 yearsLong-termOut of scope

Prioritize Data and Information requests

First 18 months18 months to 3 yearsLong-termOut of scope

10:00 AM Break

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 Day Two8:00 AM Review Day Ones Products

Review progress

Finish Goals, if necessary

Modify products as indicated

Make notes of options, choices and elements requiring further investigation

9:30 AM Prioritize Products and ServicesPrioritize Service Offerings

First 18 months/18 months to 3 years/ Long-term/Out of of scope

Prioritize Data and Information requestsFirst 18 months/18 months to 3 years/ Long-term/Out of of scope

10:00 Break10:15 Continue Prioritization of Products and Services11:30 Lunch

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 Day Two

12:30 PM Define Tactics, Target Dates, and Measures for each

Goal2:00 PM Break 2:15 PM Full Plan Review 3:30 PM Next Steps 4:00 PM Adjourn

Thanks!

Questions/Comments to

770.757.9828Vherr@groupsolutions.us