Ecosystem Services in Working Lands Practice and Policy of the U.S. Northeast: Successes, Challenges, and Opportunities for Producers and Extension Webinar

The Extension Foundation and Extension Northeast Ecosystem Services Assessment Fellows invite you to a webinar to discuss their Extension Foundation publication on the recently-completed ecosystem service landscape assessment, which analyzed provisioning programs and policies across the U.S. Northeast.

This report documents the results from a regional assessment of over 1,300 ecosystem service provisioning programs and policies across the U.S. Northeast, in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia as well as in the District of Columbia. The assessment describes the programs' institutional arrangements, their incentive structures, and the ecosystem services they provide. This analysis was grounded in four overarching goals for the Northeast region named in the RFP by the Association of Northeast Extension Directors (NEED) and Northeastern Regional Association of State Agricultural Experiment Station Directors).

Webinar Presenters:

Mario Machado
Mario Machado is a postdoctoral researcher at the Gund Institute at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on regenerative agriculture, ecosystem services, and landscape multifunctionality with a regional focus on both the U.S. Northeast and the Caribbean.

Alicia Coleman
Alicia Coleman is a postdoctoral research associate in the Applied Forest Ecology Lab at the University of Connecticut, after recently completing a doctoral degree from the Department of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Areas of interest include urban/suburban forest prioritization and information technologies, the role and expectations of environmental justice communities in urban forest stewardship, and how housing tenure affects the structure and function of urban forests. Prior to doctoral studies, Alicia completed two years of AmeriCorps service at a regional land trust in eastern Massachusetts, where she focused on conservation planning and prioritization, landowner outreach, and collaborative projects with local land trusts and the Boston-area Metropolitan Area Planning Council.