The Conservation Blueprint is Back

The South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) just released Version 2.0 of the Conservation Blueprint on June 12th. The Blueprint is a living spatial plan for the conservation actions needed to sustain the region’s natural and cultural resources for current and future generations—a shared vision for the future of the South Atlantic. The first version of the Blueprint, released in 2014, combined expert input with partner plans to generate a subwatershed-scale prioritization. Blueprint 2.0 uses indicators for terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments to produce a totally data-driven prioritization at a much finer 200 meter pixel resolution. It also explicitly models the threats of sea level rise and urbanization. Blueprint 2.0 identifies priority areas for shared conservation action—including highest and high priority categories, as well as a medium priority class that captures potential restoration opportunities. A connectivity analysis further identifies corridors linking large patches of highest priority areas.

 

Partners have already used the Blueprint to attract national fire resilience funding to the region, compete for coastal wetlands protection and climate-smart wildlife management grants, provide landscape-scale context for public lands planning, and prioritize fish passage efforts. Others are working to incorporate the Blueprint into local land acquisition criteria, ecosystem-based fishery management, and bobwhite quail habitat restoration. Through a transparent process, a science-based plan, and a user-friendly product, the South Atlantic LCC intends the Blueprint to eventually become a “gold standard” for large landscape conservation tools.

 

Get involved at: http://www.southatlanticlcc.org