The Season turns- Time to Cultivate
Now that election season is over, we want to recognize the hard, hard work that many of our members and allies invested—registering new voters, walking precincts, contributing time for phone banking and endorsing candidates—all to grow the base of environmental advocates that we hope will come to lobby with us as we prepare for the 2025 General Assembly. We thank you so much for what you have given.
We know that many of our members and allies have gone above and beyond during the election season, and that there are still many challenges ahead. We hope you all take some time in nature to recover and rest from your invaluable work. And then think about the next step—how to cultivate your relationship with your local lawmakers in their home district. This is a great time to reach out to your lawmakers now that they are also off of the campaign trail. We particularly encourage you to reach out to any new lawmakers in your respective districts, and KCC is glad to accompany you if you request. Please reach out to us and we can help prepare you for your lawmaker meetings.
Land Trust Conservation Summit Recap
Left: Zeb Weese with the Land Trust Coalition displays a symbolic check for $2 million passed last session for the Heritage Land Conservation Fund. Center: The next step is making the case for future funding. Right: A presentation on imperiled bats was one of the many informative conservation sessions.
It was great to see so many friends at the Kentucky Land Trust Coalition’s Conservation Summit at Bernheim Forest and Arboretum this past week. Attendees received updates on many federal and state programs on wetland mitigation, agricultural land easements, forest carbon sequestration, imperiled bat conservation, and other important conservation programs. There were several discussions on the funding of land conservation, which has also been a major part of KCC’s work over the past several years. Attendees took time to celebrate the successful campaign for securing $2 million in one-time funds for the Heritage Land Conservation Program—something that KCC and our allies have worked on every budget session—so it was great to see folks celebrating this $2 million in funds that we hope will be the beginning of new momentum to support land conservation in the state budget.
Representatives from The Nature Conservancy presented an update on a needs assessment that included conservation allies for the next phase of this funding campaign. Once this research is complete, KCC will continue to work with all our conservation allies to do the necessary groundwork for more funding in the 2026 budget session. We will need everyone’s help to make this happen, so if you know of organizations who would like to be involved, please contact us.
Cultivating Capacity
The Kentucky Conservation Committee believes in the power of coalition work, and we are here to help environmental and conservation organizations to become more effective in their issue advocacy. We supply direct-lobbying services and government relations support to many conservation groups in the Commonwealth who want to keep closely connected to events happening in Frankfort. At this time of year, we are asking our members to let us know about new (or old!) groups we may reach out to who could benefit from our services. At this time of year we are also working to build our base of members to increase the capacity needed to prepare for the 2025 legislative session. We depend on your help to introduce new prospective members and allies to our work.
If you are also an organization that is looking for presenters for your upcoming meetings, please contact us. We are more than happy to present to nonprofits who want to learn more about the upcoming legislative session and how to engage.
Upcoming Webinars
Keeping with the theme of land conservation, we want to flag an upcoming webinar: Please join The Conservation Fund and American Forests on November 13 for a webinar on how creating the Forest Conservation Easement Program (FCEP) will provide funding for land trusts to acquire forestland easements. You can register for the webinar at this link.
Kentucky Voices 2024- Reserve Your Spot Now!
Join us on December 6, 2024 for our annual Kentucky Voices event in Frankfort. Kentucky Voices is free to KCC members in good standing, as our "thank you" for your support, but we also encourage you to renew your membership at the event (or earlier) and invite a friend to come and join or donate to KCC, to help us raise the important funds needed to prepare for the 2025 legislative session.
This year’s event features these distinguished authors:
Melissa Helton, editor of the powerful 2024 anthology “Troublesome Rising: A Thousand-Year Flood in Eastern Kentucky.” Published by the University of Kentucky Press
Jon Reynolds, photographer and author of the 2024 book “Illuminating Nature: Chasing Light Across the Landscape.”
Greg Pape, poet and author of the 2023 collection “A Field of First Things,” published by Accents Publishing in Lexington.
To reserve your spot for this year's event, go to this link. Note: Donations to KCC are not tax-deductible due to our effective environmental lobbying efforts.
More Reflections on Environmental Champion
Art Williams
Finally, we want to thank the Kentucky Lantern for this wonderful piece that ran this past week on the legacy of former KCC Director Art Williams. We lost our friend on October 20th, and we know that Art was a friend to many in our KCC family. Art set a high bar for what it means to work across the aisle with grace and caring to make the earth a better place. We hope you can help us keep that legacy alive by working past the partisanship that many of us have been experiencing and focus on how we can continue with the work ahead with the same kind of grace Art embodied.