Scenic Hudson: Making the Hudson Valley a Model for Responding to the Climate Crisis

This case focuses on how a regional land conservation organization, Scenic Hudson, is leading efforts to implement and inform state-level climate action plans and priorities through advocacy, science-based land conservation strategies, and well-sited renewable energy facilities. This initiative helps stakeholders including farmers, residents, renewable energy project developers, and others to implement policies and practices that build regional resilience to the impacts of climate change. The case assists land conservation organizations large and small, legislators and regulators, and other interested parties in a deeper understanding of the ways in which land conservation strategies can address and orient towards climate change mitigation and adaptation, and bring science-based climate considerations into planning. The development of the initiative itself, and the multi-sector partnerships required to make it successful, has taken place over more than a decade. It may be adapted to or inform climate change and land conservation policy and practice in many locations around the globe, from Europe to Oceania.