Earlier this year, Gabe Watson and EmmaLi Tsai participated in a workshop hosted by Defenders of Wildlife to help researchers create better maps at the intersection of environmental justice and conservation. Decisions from the workshop resulted in this user guide & website, which walks users through a more collaborate and inclusive approach to conservation that considers biodiversity, climate change, and environmental justice. To put the framework and shared principles into practice, the guide also features a case study using the National Wildlife Refuge System to show where future land acquisition should be prioritized.
At the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), our goal is to advance ecological restoration at scale, yet permitting costs consume up to ⅓ of project budgets. We need money to go to nature, not paperwork. Over the past two years, EPIC has quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed policies and processes related to restoration project permitting. Here we provide a case study of adoption of e-permitting technology that ameliorated many permitting bottlenecks.
Tim Male, Executive Director of EPIC, co-wrote an article in Ecosystem Marketplace with Mariana Sarmiento and Charles Bedford on how to close the biodiversity finance gap.
How could Maryland legislators build a sandbox for nature to accelerate restoration?
The US Department of Agriculture has contracted at least seven RCPP projects that used performance-based payments to buy environmental outcomes. This report profiles their challenges and successes.
Sand County Foundation and the Environmental Policy Innovation Center evaluate the successes, challenges, and immediate opportunities for watershed partnerships in the Midwest.
A report on the progress of nine Iowa cities that have signed memoranda of understanding with the state Department of Natural Resources to establish watershed partnerships.
This report describes how to proliferate connections between point and nonpoint sources of nutrients to meet permit requirements and improve water quality.
Sandboxing Nature in Maryland Handout
How could Maryland legislators build a sandbox for nature to accelerate restoration?
Case Studies of Performance-based RCPP Projects
The US Department of Agriculture has contracted at least seven RCPP projects that used performance-based payments to buy environmental outcomes. This report profiles their challenges and successes.
A Balancing Act: Optimizing Payment Schedules in Environmental Pay for Success Contracts
Midwest Watershed Partnerships: Successes, Challenges, and Immediate Opportunities
Sand County Foundation and the Environmental Policy Innovation Center evaluate the successes, challenges, and immediate opportunities for watershed partnerships in the Midwest.
Progress of Iowa Watershed Partnerships
A report on the progress of nine Iowa cities that have signed memoranda of understanding with the state Department of Natural Resources to establish watershed partnerships.
Establishing a Watershed Partnership
This report describes how to proliferate connections between point and nonpoint sources of nutrients to meet permit requirements and improve water quality.
Challenges to Scaling RCPP: A review of the Regional Conservation Partnership Program's 2023 notice of funding opportunity
Maryland Forest Stewardship Disalignment Report
An analysis of incentives driving forest management decisions by Maryland landowners and the current state of their coordination
Maryland’s Conowingo Pay for Success Program Preliminary Information
Increasing the efficiency of land transactions
EPIC 2023 Farm Bill Concepts
EPIC’s concepts to dramatically increase the pace and scale of conservation in the 2023 Farm Bill
Purchasing Environmental Progress
NASDA Action Item Encouraging a Clean Water Outcomes Matching Program
Action item approved by NASDA encouraging a Clean Water Outcome Matching Program in the next Farm Bill
Pennsylvania Clean Water Procurement Program Explainer
Maryland Clean Water Commerce Act Explainer
Watershed Partnerships Memoranda of Understanding
Recommendations to Strengthen EPA’s Watershed Approach To Water Quality Under the Biden Administration
Strengthening Urban-Rural Connections
We have identified 20 ways that cites and water utilities can pay for water quality improvements on farms.