Kevin Essington is director of the Pawcatuck Borderlands Project, an ambitious joint project of the The Nature Conservancy to protect thousands of acres of intact forest on the Connecticut/Rhode Island border, ensuring the health of several watersheds, and retaining the area's rural character. His work on land acquisition, land and watershed restoration, planning, and consensus building has led to the conservation of over 4,000 acres in both New England and Colorado. Kevin spoke with Planning Vision director, John Fox, about the challenges and rewards of facilitating collaboration and collective action across state lines.

Starting in the middle, as it were, what is the significance of the Pawcatuck Borderlands as a conservation area?
 
It is perhaps the largest and most forested area between Boston and New York. The significance of an area of that size (140,000 acres), within two hours drive of 40 million people, is evident. This is essentially a relic, a forest type that once covered millions of acres in southern New England. It is a vital place for wildlife, clean water and human health. 
 
Your project goals speak more explicitly to building shared understanding and fostering a culture of regional collaboration—essentially, building social capital—than they do to more traditional “conservation” outcomes. Why is that?
 
We are lucky to have a place like the Borderlands. It is not here by accident, but rather through the hard work and vision of hundreds of people over the last 70 years to conserve this place for future generations. When that work was begun in the 1930's, it was done within the context of ideas by people like Gifford Pinchot, where to be a "conservationist" was to be "conservative" about our shared resources for people. The "for people" piece was at its core. These forests were there to, in part, sustain the forest economy.
 
The difference today is the power of the tools at our disposal. The sophisticated planning, mapping, analysis, and networking capabilities that groups like The Nature Conservancy and Orton use have pushed us beyond the "classic" land protection paradigm. We've learned that our boundaries are very proximate, and we can project (and absorb) values into other areas as well. It's also been a part of The Nature Conservancy's culture to dwell in the "radical center," and that by being open to ideas from non-traditional partners we can learn a lot about our own work while helping others see how their work impacts and benefits the natural environment.
 
What activities have you undertaken to bring communities together and build a receptive environment for collective action? What’s worked best so far?
 
One activity that comes to mind was the incredibly well-facilitated "Clinic on Regional Collaboration" run by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. We were fortunate to have people running the clinic who have been involved with dozens of regional collaboratives and have seen what trips these things up and what motivates them to be successful. Our partners, the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council, work with TNC to ensure that a very diverse group attended the clinic, and we went to great lengths to ensure that each table was in turn, diverse. The response was very strong—over 70 people attended and were energized to continue to meet, mostly in order to learn more about their neighbors.
 
Have you felt the need to expand your own skill set and mind set in order to successfully lead such an ambitious effort?
 
I've been lucky to learn from some very experienced and broad minded folks, such as Kip Bergstrom at the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council, Larry Quick of New Commons, Armando Carbonell at the Lincoln Institute, and Matt McKinney at the University of Montana. They've helped me understand that the power of networks and the power of innovative thinking can be its own end, not just a means to an end. Also, I've had to push myself to see that conservation and rural lands mean so much to so many different people, and that a collaborative can't and won't have a "pre-determined" outcome. But I've always tried to take the long view when it comes to this kind of work, and that part of me hasn't changed. It has helped me temper the demands of those who want "action" in the face of uncertainty and in-operable networks.
 
What’s been the greatest challenge to achieving collective regional action in this project?
 
The State Line! We had someone stand up at the Clinic and say that the best part of the day was that, even though he had lived in his town for 20 years and been involved in town politics for most of that time, he had never, until that day, met a selectman from the neighboring town across the state line. It was a profound moment. That is where the networks are broken. The only stakeholder group I've come to know that works effectively across the state line are the local dairy farmers. Farmers know every other farmer for miles around: who bought a new truck, who bought more cows, and who has moved off. I keep wondering if there is some way to use that network to help the other social groups in the collaborative function better?
 
One of the innovations of your project seems to be using traditional New England building blocks—rural villages oriented around a shared commons—to create a thriving network of vibrant 21st century communities.
 
Yes, and this has been the biggest conceptual step forward in the collaborative thus far. The ideal of the village seems to be the place where economic development and conservation are finding common ground. Certainly, a village can provide retail, housing, and public service opportunities, and can do so in a setting that most people identify with, if its designed properly. But, as Kip Bergstrom points out, a village addresses conservation as well: a village is defined by the farms and fields that surround it. In other words, a village surrounded by development is a town or suburb or city. This concept resonates with people at many levels, so based on what we heard from stakeholders we recently held an informational forum on the opportunities and challenges to encouraging this type of development and are planning a related forum on Transfer of Development Rights. 
 
Do you view the Borderlands initiative as creating a model for regional collaboration that could be successfully emulated elsewhere in New England?
 
Well, we are lucky in that we have a diverse mix of partners engaged in the collaborative. It takes vision and leadership for conservationists and economic development-types to recognize their commonalities. I've worked in other places where the leadership just wasn't there to discuss things in this way. The divide is usually too wide to bridge with a collaborative of this size. So if our ability to mobilize diverse points-of-view is a model, then I hope it gets emulated. Yet, I would caution people to manage their expectations unless they too are lucky to have the right leadership.