Dear USBN Members,
Thanks to your continued engagement and support over the past year, the USBN has made significant strides in advancing our mission of fostering national and international connections among biosphere regions (BRs), facilitating their sharing of best practices, and supporting their work to connect people and nature.
Here is a short list of our network’s accomplishments from 2022-2023:
Organizational Development and Capacity Building
- Capacity Building Workshop featuring Deb Davidson, Center for Large Landscape Conservation and Lisa Brush, Stewardship Network
- Meetings with the Council for Environmental Quality, NPS, NOAA, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Senate offices of King and Whitehouse
- Grant from North American Partnership for Environmental Community Action to support (4) interns in ‘twinned’ biosphere regions in Canada and the US (a Canadian Biosphere Reserves Association partnership)
- “Scientist-in-the-Park” internships placed in eight biosphere regions
Communication and Outreach
- Quarterly USBN Newsletters
- BR videos completed for Big Thicket and Congaree
- Assistance to Salazaar Center on Mexico/US Borderlands
- US delegation to UNESCO MAB meeting in Austria
- Side meeting at the International Marine Protected Areas Congress in Vancouver with IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas Specialist Groups on Protected Areas and Climate Change and on Geoconservation and Climate Change
Climate Change
- Development of socio-ecological framework for assessing climate change vulnerability and adaptation planning for human and natural communities
- Creation of climate-sensitive resources survey template for BRs
- Crop Wild Relatives Webinar completed
Your Support is Needed in the Next Phase of Growth
As we approach the year’s end, the USBN stands at a transition where your investment in network capacity will yield substantial conservation benefits. Individual biosphere regions are demonstrating how robust collaborations among tribal sovereigns, and public and private conservation and economic partners can address climate change and threats to biodiversity while sustaining human communities and their economic livelihoods. These local and regional efforts – centered around place-based affinity and identity – can be greatly amplified by a strong national network that provides strategic technical assistance, organizational support, and sharing of best practices.
To advance the USBN’s vision of a healthy global environment where people and nature thrive together, we are asking you to pledge your support by making a modest contribution to help fuel the USBN’s next phase of growth. Your generous contributions will enable us to build professional capacity for the USBN as a whole and, also, provide service back to the individual US biosphere regions to improve site-level capacity.
Your contributions will support four key purposes:
- Development and launch of a USBN Website
- Extension of the (currently) part-time USBN Coordinator
- Organization of a North American Biosphere Region Youth Summit
- Demonstration to philanthropic and governmental funders that the network is supported in part by the network members. We believe this is an essential element of a successful funding strategy that can return additional resources to the USBN and network member BRs.
Our Goal
Our goal is to receive pledges from individuals within all 28 biosphere regions by the end of 2023. We’re aiming to reach a target of $10,000 by December 31, 2023, and $15,000 by March. To show your support for the USBN, we invite you to contribute at any of the following pledge levels.
Fundraising Pledge Levels:
Click this LINK to pledge your support and make a gift to the USBN, making sure to use the pull-down menu on the form to direct your gift to the USBN!
Please note these levels are suggestions, we are grateful for any amount you can contribute. Your support will make a significant impact on the next phase of growth for the USBN and demonstrate to future funders that the network is worthy of their support.
Thank you in advance for your personal and professional commitments to the biosphere regions, the program’s vision, and most importantly, for your ongoing commitment to improve human connection to nature now and for future generations.
Sincerely,
Jon Allan
Chair, US Biosphere Network
cc: Gary Tabor, President, CLLC
Deborah Davidson, Vice President, CLLC
