Conservation Effectiveness Partnership (CEP)

Partners

Overview & Mission

Together, four state agencies and the NRCS recognized their shared objectives and developed a shared group mission statement:
To describe the effectiveness of cumulative conservation and restoration actions in achieving natural resource outcomes through collaborative monitoring, evaluation, and reporting.

Shared Goals

1. Build an understanding of the extent of the investment in watershed improvement and the watershed response through the agencies’ collective grant programs,
2. Develop a clear understanding of how local organizations are using funding from different sources.
3. Evaluate the effects of conservation and restoration investments on water quality and watershed condition.
4. Design tools and methods of reporting results of investments, including a communications plan.

Accomplishments

Watershed Case Studies
Completed six Watershed Case Studies. Each case study includes technical reports and data-driven outreach materials (e.g., StoryMaps, fact sheets). CEP agencies and local partners are now using the products to share and demonstrate collaborative conservation outcomes. Case studies are listed under the "Resources" section of this page.

Data Sharing
CEP has provided a venue to discuss efficiencies and improvements in reporting among agencies. The group developed methods to share spatial data to look for areas of overlap among partnering state agencies, and developed a consistent way to roll up NRCS and OWEB metrics, showing priority areas where investments have occurred. The results are being used for agency water quality and implementation reporting.

CEP has an inter-agency data sharing agreement, which helps the member agencies to develop case studies and examples for how they could combine their data into integrated reports.

Lessons learned
CEP’s efforts demonstrate challenges and lessons learned in collaborative conservation. Long-term monitoring is essential to be able to determine the results of conservation actions. Water quality conditions can be slow to respond, and therefore it is challenging to connect responses to specific conservation actions. This is especially true where pre-project baseline data is limited.

CEP worked through a regular, facilitated meeting structure that provided a meaningful way to exchange information at the technical managers and leadership levels for each agency. The structure helped ensure engagement and accountability.

Status update

CEP has convened since 2010, and developed a Memorandum of Understanding, renewed through 2028. The group is currently on hiatus.

Each member agency is using the CEP outcomes to inform their agency’s efforts to describe the results from cumulative conservation objectives and demonstrate that voluntary conservation works. For example, CEP products contribute to water quality success stories, and provide a model for OWEB’s "Telling the Restoration Story" targeted grant offering. CEP’s efforts continue to inform inter-agency initiatives such as ODA’s Strategic Implementation Areas.

Contact

Please direct questions or comments to Audrey Hatch, Conservation Outcomes Coordinator, 971-345-7002.