Locally Led Conservation Planning
What is locally-led conservation planning?
The Orleans County NRCD conducts surveys, hosts community meetings, and chairs a Local Workgroup meeting to engage community members and conservation partners in a conversation about natural resource concerns. This approach involves community stakeholders and concerned citizens in the natural resource planning, implementation of solutions, and evaluation of results.
The process is called locally-led conservation planning. The goal is to identify the greatest natural resource concerns by getting input from Orleans County residents, farmers, foresters, and land stewards to guide our work at the OCNRCD, to inform the State's priorities, and to secure federal resources for obligation in the Orleans County Local Fund Pool.
The 2025 PUBLIC and PARTNER MEETINGS for Locally Led Conservation Planning were held this year in February. To learn more about the outcomes of the 2025 meetings, go to our page here.
For a summary of our SURVEY FINDINGS findings, your can read the 2025 Survey Results Report here.
“Lasting conservation can neither be carried out nor maintained without the willing and earnest cooperation of landowners and operators. Unless [producers] are given a guiding responsibility in the program, without coercion of any kind, there is little chance for the accomplishment of enduring conservation. The best way for doing this is by directing the job locally through the [producer]-voted and [producer]-directed soil conservation districts now covering most of the agricultural land of the nation.” (Bennett, Elements of Soil Conservation, 1952)
Why engage in Locally Led Conservation Planning?
Conservation Districts were created to lead locally-led conservation efforts in their community, connecting on-the-ground local knowledge with decision making at the state and national level. According to the USDA-NRCS website, “As early as 1935, USDA managers began to search for ways to extend conservation assistance to more farmers. They believed the solution was to establish democratically organized soil conservation districts to lead the conservation planning effort at the local level.”
Community engagement in natural resource decision making is a fundamental way to expand access to information and meaningful involvement in the distribution of natural resource funding. The participation of community stakeholders in assessing local natural resource conservation needs, setting community conservation goals, and developing an action plan is key in the District's effort to obtaining locally-focused, county-level federal funding to carry out the plan, to implement solutions, and to measure our success.
For a great overview of the locally led conservation history and process, check out this PowerPoint presentation created by our colleagues at the White River NRCD.
