Final report for the LISA Project, funded by USAID, which seeks to understand the challenges and barriers that slow the adoption and implementation of safeguards that protect Asia’s diverse wildlife species and their critical habitats from the region’s rapidly expanding linear infrastructure.
Drawing from the Center’s experience in collaborative forest restoration and management, this report examines the challenges and opportunities relating to climate adaptation implementation and larger scale conservation by focusing on specific lessons learned from a landscape-scale, on-the-ground project within the Yellowstone to Yukon region.
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.
State fish and wildlife managers recognize that keeping landscapes connected is an important conservation tool. Yet there is growing evidence that the impacts of climate change are already altering the needs and behaviors of animals, creating new patterns of movement throughout the landscape. Staff from the Center recently contributed to a new toolkit offering guidance on protecting wildlife movement and corridor habitat in the face of a changing climate.
The last time I was in Kenya, I flew home to the U.S. on March 3, 2020, blissfully unaware that the entire world was about to upend itself due to COVID-19. I had been living in Kisumu full-time, finishing my Master of Environmental Management degree, and only expected to spend three months in the U.S. for a short-term consulting gig and graduation. But those few months turned into a long-term move back and I secured a role with the Center for Large Landscape Conservation.
The report from the Connectivity Conservation Workshop: Guiding the Carpathian Region has now been released. It details the outcomes of discussions among over 50 scientists, conservation experts, natural resource managers, and policymakers from 13 countries that met in Poiana Brasov, Romania from 4-6 November 2019.
This is a watershed moment for conservation in the United States. The Biden administration’s America the Beautiful initiative—along with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Law—is driving unprecedented levels of funding into the restoration, stewardship, and conservation of our lands and waters. But this influx of federal project delivery funding reveals a gap that needs to be filled: the on-the-ground capacity to get the work done. The Catalyst Fund, with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, aims to build capacity and help local and regional partnerships contribute toward achieving national conservation goals.
Learn how Vital Ground is integrating climate resiliency and wildlife connectivity considerations into conservation efforts, and what other land trusts can do to adopt more climate and connectivity friendly approaches into their work.
Located in southeast Turkmenistan, on the border with Uzbekistan and close to Afghanistan, the Mountain Ecosystems of Koytendag (MEK) are one of the most distinctive landscapes in Central Asia. The region extends from the hot, dry, semi-desert plains of the Amu Darya River Valley to the snow-capped peaks of Ayrybaba, rising to 3,137 meters (10,292 feet) as the highest mountain in Turkmenistan. Covering a combined area of over 100,000 hectares, the ecosystem hosts rare species such as Urial sheep, lynx, and markhor, and is important habitat for pistachio and juniper forests. Recently, experts from this area and around the country gathered to discuss how to conserve this extraordinary natural area, including how to ensure its habitat areas remain connected.
More than 20 speakers and nearly 200 attendees made history last week as participants in the first-of-its-kind gathering to share knowledge for making transportation infrastructure more sustainable across Asia. As many countries in the region expand their networks of roads, rails, and other modes of transportation, such development can provide vast economic and social benefits but also present challenges to nature conservation and local communities. Therefore, on December 16-17, 2021, the 1st Asia Transportation Ecology Forum was held to explore how this development is already impacting ecosystems—affecting species from butterflies to elephants—and how science-based solutions can be applied to conserve Asia’s rich biodiversity.
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