Large Landscape News

Protected Planet Report: 7.84% of Land is Protected and Connected

Protected lands and freshwaters cover approximately a sixth of the world’s surface according to the new Protected Planet Report 2020. This online publication provides insights on the status of global progress toward achieving the goal of protecting at least 17% of land by 2020. It also highlights opportunities for goals and actions toward halting and reversing the biodiversity crisis before 2050. The Center is proud to have contributed to this leading global assessment on the state of protected and conserved areas around the world.

Conservation Experts Call for a New National Landscape Conservation Framework

The Biden administration has proposed a bold conservation agenda to address biodiversity, environmental justice, and climate change. Through an executive order and a subsequent report, the administration proposes an unprecedented and visionary response to the current environmental crises. However, this guidance does not detail how the principles, priorities, and objectives outlined in the report will be implemented. The Center for Large Landscape Conservation and partners have provided a potential roadmap for how to achieve these ambitious goals.

Virtual Policy Forum Series Spring Webinar

Collaborative landscape conservation is increasingly important as our country faces emerging challenges to address climate change, biodiversity, environmental justice, conservation of working lands, and rebuilding our economy. Join the Network for Landscape Conservation for the Policy Forum webinar “The Future of Landscape Conservation: Investments in Science and Networks for Biodiversity, Climate, and Cultural Conservation Goals,” which will highlight needed investments to meet these current conservation challenges.

The Center’s Statement on the Biden Administration’s “America the Beautiful” Report

Read the statement from Gary Tabor, president of the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, on the Biden administration’s “Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful” report, which recommends a national, 10-year, locally led campaign to restore the nation’s lands and waters.

Connecting Youth for Nature: Experiences from the Global Youth Summit

Akash Patil of India spoke of his first encounter with a leopard and his subsequent commitment to a career in conservation. Nayla Azmi told a story of growing up in an Indonesian palm oil plantation and her journey to become an orangutan protector. Sarah Kulis, a recent graduate from West Virginia University, and legally blind, encouraged other aspiring conservationists with disabilities to persevere. These were three of the young storytellers who shared their experiences in conservation at the Center’s workshop at the recent IUCN Global Youth Summit.

UN Adopts Landmark Resolution “Nature Knows No Borders”

Recently, the United Nations General Assembly adopted an unprecedented resolution recognizing the critical importance of ecological connectivity worldwide. The resolution, sponsored by Kyrgyzstan and signed by 60 other countries, encourages all 193 country members to enhance habitat and species connectivity to preserve ecosystems and wildlife corridors that share borders between countries.

Presenting the Spanish Translation of IUCN Global Guidelines for Connectivity Conservation

On this Earth Day 2021, the Center is proud to announce release of the official Spanish translation of the IUCN ‘Guidelines for Conserving Connectivity through Ecological Networks and Corridors.’ As the result of contributions from more than 100 experts in 30 countries serving as volunteer members of the IUCN WCPA Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group (CCSG), these groundbreaking Guidelines are already helping to clarify and standardize approaches worldwide for conserving ecological connectivity.

2021 4 28 Female Leopard In Badhyz State Nature Reserve Turkmenistan Trosen E

Connecting Leopards, Connecting People: The Central Asian Ecological Connectivity Initiative

The Center is increasingly engaging with partners across Central Asia to build capacity, promote research, and implement connectivity conservation efforts in the countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. We are proud to be part of growing collaboration across this globally important biodiversity hotspot that has, among other progress, yielded important scientific evidence about the presence of an endangered and charismatic species—the Persian leopard—in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

Creating Safe Passage for Desert Tortoises

Road ecologist Elizabeth Fairbank looks out across a seemingly endless expanse of the Mojave Desert in southern Nevada. The roadside location feels remote on this quiet February morning, but a bird’s eye view would reveal a slightly different story: the desert is crisscrossed with a web of roads and highways that did not exist a few decades ago. Fairbank is on a site visit to the heart of Desert Tortoise habitat, hoping to help save the species before it’s too late.

Climate Adaptation Plans: Building Community Readiness for Climate Change

Evidence of a changing climate can be seen in every community and every landscape. Across the globe, communities are experiencing more frequent and extreme weather events that include drought, intense wildfire seasons, air pollution, and flooding. Alarmingly, it has been estimated that even if worldwide human emissions were to halt overnight, the earth would still be feeling the effects of climate change for years to come. For this reason, communities from rural towns to major cities are proactively preparing for the challenges ahead.