Policy Archives - Center for Large Landscape Conservation

Connecting Communities and Wildlife: A Local Planning Guide

Wildlife don’t stop at city limits, county lines, or property boundaries—and neither should local government planning. The decisions communities make today about how and where to build will shape whether future generations inherit thriving landscapes that sustain people and wildlife alike. That’s why CLLC created a new report on wildlife habitat connectivity and local government: to bring together the policy tools and practical strategies that every community and every community member—whether you’re a resident, planner, biologist, developer, or legislator—can consider using to help keep landscapes connected.

US-93 Overpass, Montana - CLLC/Gabe Oppler

Montana Governor Signs Bill Approving State License Plate to Fund Wildlife Crossings

On May 8, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed a bill into law that will help keep drivers and wildlife safe on the state’s roadways. House Bill 855 creates a dedicated fund and authorizes a new state specialty license plate expected to generate up to $160,000 per year. Revenues from sales of the plate will help contribute to the planning, design, and construction of wildlife crossing structures, which have been proven to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions. The Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC) supported the bill as part of its work to advance solutions that reconnect fragmented wildlife habitat in Montana and globally.

The Center Leads the Charge for Ecological Connectivity at UN Negotiations to Save Migratory Wildlife

They run. They fly. They swim. Migratory species from elephants to golden eagles to sea turtles cover vast distances and often cross borders to survive. In February 2024, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation joined countries, partners, and experts in the ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, to increase commitments and contributions to conserve migratory wildlife and their habitats around the world. Under the motto “Nature Knows No Borders,” more than 1,000 participants attended the 14th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS/CoP-14), the first to be hosted in a Central Asian country.

Our International Connectivity Conservation Action Plan for 2030

In December 2022, representatives from the Center for Large Landscape Conservation were present in Montreal, Canada when 188 countries made an historic commitment adopting the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). As a main outcome of Convention on Biological Diversity’s 15th Conference of the Parties, the GBF is now the most significant agreement to date for bolstering global cooperation to conserve and restore nature. Since then, the Center has been engaging in discussions and planning across its networks of experts and institutions to best coordinate actions to support lasting conservation gains on the ground. With the importance of connectivity and landscape- and seascape-scale approaches emphasized in the GBF, it is clear that the Center has a significant role to play in its implementation.

Drone Footage Of A Colorado Wildlife Crossing. Credit: Tony Cady/CDOT

New Federal Funding to Build Life-Saving Wildlife Crossings is Now Available

Millions of collisions occur between drivers and animals on U.S. roads annually. To address this dangerous, expensive, and growing problem, Congress created a national Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program. This new grant program will prevent accidents and connect habitat by investing in measures that allow wildlife to safely cross over or under roads and fish to pass through streams beneath roads. Earlier today, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity for the program’s first round of competitive grants—nearly $112M for research, planning, design, and construction projects that aim to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and improve aquatic and terrestrial habitat connectivity.

President Biden At 2023 Wh Conservation Summit Credit @POTUS Via Twitter

Biden Administration Makes Historic Landscape Conservation Announcements

This past month was a historic one for landscape conservation and connectivity in the United States. Each week in March of this year, the Biden administration rolled out a major new initiative to conserve and restore lands, waters, and wildlife across large regions of the country. The recent slew of announcements demonstrates that our movement to think and act on conservation at the landscape level has come of age.

Experts Agree on the Need for Climate-informed Wildlife Crossings

More than a dozen climate, wildlife, and road ecology experts from across the country wrote a consensus statement urging government officials at all levels to consider climate change when planning and constructing structures that help fish and wildlife cross under and over highways. As the appetite increases for solutions that improve wildlife migration and movement while reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions, there is a heightened need and opportunity for designing infrastructure that is sited and designed in ways that accommodate the current and anticipated impacts of climate change.

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New National Policy Introduced to Conserve Wildlife Movement on Public Lands

While national parks may be the most familiar type of public lands, another type of federal sites make up roughly ten percent of the land area of the US. More than 2,400 U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sites—from the Meadowood Trail System in Virginia to the Imperial Sand Dunes in California—have been set aside for a wide range of uses, including grazing, mining, and energy development, along with scientific, cultural, historical, and recreational purposes. But the BLM is also charged with conserving habitat for the wide variety of fish and wildlife that live on lands and waters managed by the agency. Now, a new BLM policy addresses the growing public concern over habitat fragmentation and the ability of species to move for their daily and seasonal needs.

The Center Celebrates Adoption of the Global Biodiversity Framework

Center staff have now returned from their adventures in Montreal, attending the UN Biodiversity Conference. Ecological connectivity—the unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth—was an exciting topic of negotiations and discussions during what is officially referred to as the 15th Conference of the Parties (CoP-15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In the final days of the conference, the governments of 196 countries adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework on 18 December 2022. This milestone agreement will now serve as the strategic plan for implementation of the Convention over the period 2022-2030. To date, this is the most significant agreement for bolstering global cooperation to conserve and restore nature.

Credit Living Habitats And National Wildlife Federation

Slew of States Pass Legislation This Year to Build Wildlife Crossings

In 2022, states across the country have passed legislation to take advantage of historic, new federal funding for wildlife crossing structures. Over just the past six months, seven states have enacted laws that set aside the required state match to federal grants for infrastructure projects that reconnect habitat. Many of these state policies also facilitate coordination between transportation and natural resource agencies—as well as collaboration with diverse stakeholders—to identify projects that will most effectively reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and improve habitat connectivity.

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