Knowledge Center

A comprehensive approach to landscape conservation must include urban spaces and communities, as much as it includes large wild places and rural communities. For nearly fifty years, The Trust for Public Land has been a leader in land protection and park creation, working with communities across the American landscape to advance equity, health, and climate resilience. Leaders from TPL’s parks and schoolyards teams will share insights on effective strategies for using park creation, spatial analysis, and community engagement as part of a conservation approach that strengthens and improves the livability of our cities while connecting them to a larger surrounding landscape that spans regional and, ultimately, national borders.

Natural resource practitioners are increasingly taking a collaborative, landscape-level approach to natural resource conservation. Despite its potential advantages, this approach faces challenges. Primary among these is ensuring ecosystem-wide goals for conservation can effectively inform local management plans and actions. This necessitates working with local stakeholders. Opportunities for local stakeholders to participate in landscape conservation planning are often limited, in part because conservation leaders are uncertain about whether, when, and how these stakeholders might most effectively participate in decision processes.

In this presentation, Catherine Doyle-Capitman will provide an overview of best practices for engaging local stakeholders and incorporating social data during collaborative landscape conservation planning. An overview of these best practices can be found in the following practitioners’ guide: Facilitating Local Stakeholder Participation in Collaborative Landscape Conservation Planning.

Presenter: Paul Beier, Conservation Research Fellow, Center for Large Landscape Conservation

Drawing upon his more-than-thirty-year career designing and conserving wildlife corridors, Paul Beier, a Conservation Research Fellow with the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and formerly the Regents Professor of Conservation Biology at Northern Arizona University, will share insights into translating connectivity research into conservation action:

During a study of cougars in rapidly urbanizing southern California (1988-1992), I documented that dispersing cubs could find and use narrow corridors through urban areas, and my population model showed the importance of connectivity. Since then, I have been learning how to translate this science into conservation action. The key lessons were that fighting fragmentation is less effective than implementing a linkage design (duh!), and that scientists can be effective leaders only if we get local conservation practitioners to invite us to participate in their real-world work. This work involves workshops to identify 10 to 20 focal species per linkage, identifying barriers and chokepoints, and writing (nay, implementing!) plans that integrate the goals of conservation, economic development, and social justice. These efforts are not just slowing down the rate at which things get worse (“mitigation”), but are creating landscapes more permeable to wildlife than what we have today.

*Apologies that this recording is missing the first three minutes of the presentation. Please be in touch with Esther Duke at [email protected] with questions or to reach out about Lighthawk services.

Presenters:
Ryan Boggs, Chief Program Officer, LightHawk
Esther Duke, Western Program Officer, LightHawk

Founded in 1979, the conservation nonprofit LightHawk is the largest environmental flying organization in the country. We engage our network of more than 300 volunteer pilots to provide hundreds of flights each year. Working with more than 100 conservation partners, we help solve pressing river, ocean, land and wildlife problems.

LightHawk is donating flights to advance the work of Network for Landscape Conservation’s members. LightHawk flights can advance your conservation mission in many ways. Flying is often the best way to demonstrate the scope and potential impact of your initiative to:

· Legislators and policy-makers
· Key corporate partners and other stakeholders
· Foundation program officers and major donors
· Journalists and other media

Flights can also enable you to survey wildlife, monitor conservation easements, photograph your landscape, and even transport wildlife to support species recovery efforts. LightHawk provides customized conservation flight planning, planes, pilots, and advice on photography. Flights are available in Canada and Mexico as well as the U.S.

Presenter: Jodi Hilty, President and Chief Scientist of Y2Y

Founded in 1993, the Yellowstone-to-Yukon vision was one of the earliest large landscape conservation visions — an interconnected system of wildlands stretching from Yellowstone to Yukon, harmonizing the needs of people with nature. Many have suggested that they are inspired by this ambitious vision, but wondered whether the vision has had any real impact given that conservation advances are generally more localized.

The Network for Landscape Conservation was pleased to host award-winning author and veteran New Yorker contributor Tony Hiss for a conversation about his latest and just-published book, “Rescuing the Planet: Protecting Half the Land to Heal the Earth.” Tony was joined in the discussion as well by Valerie Courtois, Director of Canada’s Indigenous Leadership Initiative, whose work is featured in the book, and Brenda Barrett, editor and founder of the Living Landscape Observer and member the Network’s Coordinating Committee.

We are also pleased to partner with the Country Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Bozeman, MT to make signed copies of Tony’s book available.