Dr. Amanda Sesser, the Coordinator of the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) Partnership, discusses the need for inclusive design and decision-making processes that involve diverse stakeholders and empower communities. By bringing together various sectors of society, such as transportation, energy, and conservation, sustainable landscapes can be co-designed, created, and managed for people, planet, and prosperity. The episode emphasizes the need to balance human well-being and ecological integrity – a challenge that requires a new governance model that breaks down silos in traditional planning and decision-making. It addresses historic patterns of inequality and injustice to create a more inclusive and equitable society and highlights the concept of reciprocity and the importance of engaging indigenous and other disenfranchised people.