EFC partnered with the Maryland Forestry Foundation to develop an action framework and community engagement series to support Resilience Financing for Maryland Local Governments. This capacity building and education effort was designed to help local governments build resilience into their communities, particularly in the form of natural capital. Natural capital is the extension of the economic notion of capital (manufactured means of production) to goods and services relating to the natural environment. Maryland’s natural capital is made up of natural ecosystems, which provide services into the future such as sources of drinking water, mitigation of stormwater runoff, nutrient uptake, groundwater recharge, soil erosion prevention, wildlife habitat and even carbon sequestration. The state’s forests, streams, wetlands and other natural ecosystems deliver these services, often for free. Specifically, this project supported: 1) the development of an action framework for assessing and advancing the capacity of local governments to finance resilience projects; 2) a pilot of the action framework with a cohort of local governments; 3) the delivery of workshops for local governments to incorporate resilience and green infrastructure into their budget process; and 4) a series of facilitated discussions to help advance the state of practice throughout the region.
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