Sentinel Landscapes

Sentinel Landscapes are federally designated areas that contain high priority lands for multiple federal and state agencies adjacent to military installations of national importance to the Department of Defense. Each Local Sentinel Landscape Partnership is formed and led by a Local Coordinating Committee made up of representatives of key local, state and federal agencies along with conservation and community impact organizations to pursue ambitious visions for landscape scale conservation, climate resilience and community economic development. 

LegacyWorks Group is supporting the evolution of the program at the national and local levels to better enable each Sentinel Landscape Partnership to set and achieve highly ambitious, landscape scale conservation, community and climate resilience goals. In 2022 and 2023, LegacyWorks Group undertook an assessment of the first ten years of the Sentinel Landscape Program, generated a set of recommendations and suggestions for the program’s Federal Coordinating Committee, and designed a Sentinel Landscape Planning Framework (v1) for implementation throughout the network. We are currently supporting each Sentinel Landscape with the development or update of their Sentinel Landscape Plan while also working with the Federal Coordinating Committee and the National Program Management Team to implement the recommendations from the 10-Year Assessment and design and implement a National Sentinel Landscape Support Organization in the year ahead. 

LegacyWorks Group is also entering into a Cooperative Agreement with the NRCS to manage funds the agency is dedicating to the Sentinel Landscape Program, to house staff that will support the program, and manage pass through grants to other partners in the network. We are working on additional cooperative agreements to play key supporting roles in the program and look forward to helping the National Sentinel Landscape Program and each Local Sentinel Landscape Partnership achieve their potential for landscape-scale conservation and community collaboration.

The United States Endowment for Forestry and Communities, Inc. (the "Endowment") is a not for-profit corporation that works collaboratively with partners in the public and private sectors to advance systemic, transformative and sustainable change for the health and vitality of the nation's working forests and forest-reliant communities. 

Fort Huachuca Sentinel Landscape, AZ. Photo by Ole Amundsen

Northwest Florida Sentinel Landscape, FL. Photo by Ole Amundsen