Resources

On July 30, 2019, the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee unanimously voted (21-0) to advance a bipartisan transportation reauthorization bill, S. 2302, America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act. This summary compiles excerpts of the wildlife-related provisions of that bill, including Section 1125, which for the first time ever creates a $250 million wildlife crossing pilot program aimed at reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions and improving habitat connectivity.

Investment in transportation infrastructure (primarily roads and railways) is a primary driver of threats and impacts to wildlife habitat and connectivity across sub-Saharan Africa. With this background in mind, this paper presents two analyses: 1) a comprehensive accounting of the global and regional multilateral development banks (MDBs) active in sub-Saharan Africa, their absolute investments in, and relative emphasis on, transportation infrastructure on the continent; and 2) a systematic review of the environmental and social safeguards and standards policies of MDBs that relate to wildlife, habitat, connectivity, and biodiversity conservation.

The first integrated global-scale intergovernmental assessment of the status, trends, and future of the links between people and nature provides an unprecedented picture of the extent of mutual dependence, the breadth and depth of the ongoing and impending crisis, and the interconnectedness among sectors and regions.

This article explores opportunities for using data and products produced by the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program to support the implementation of the 2012 Planning Rule. The Planning Rule promulgated new regulations for land-management planning and emphasizes the importance of scientifically credible assessment and monitoring strategies for adaptive forest planning and maintenance or restoration of ecological integrity.

This document provides a variety of potential provisions for state legislators. Each provision attempts to address and improve different facets of identifying and protecting state wildlife movement and habitat connectivity. The following pages provide rationales for enhancing existing or creating new provisions and, where available, include examples of model or sample legislative language. Although intended to be sufficiently flexible to apply anywhere in the U.S., the sample provisions included in the document are not tailored to any specific state. As a result, those provisions may require additional modifications or refinements, depending upon the state’s desired goal, as well as the enactment of additional provisions related to compliance, enforcement, or other avenues of accountability.

A description of the main provisions of the Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act, accompanied by case studies of how the legislation would benefit several key species (including Florida panthers, pronghorn, monarch butterflies, and grizzly bears).

This study is the first systematic, evidence-based assessment of whether connectivity conservation plans (CCPs) result in conservation outcomes and what attributes of plans favor successful implementation. By gathering CCPs from around the world, characterizing attributes by surveying and conducting interviews with plan authors, analyses suggest that implementation of a CCP was enhanced by several tools, recommendations and partnerships.

Protected areas are one of the most effective means by which biodiversity is conserved, but are often criticized for either neglecting the importance of local communities or sacrificing conservation objectives for political expedience. In this study, we compared U.S. protected areas resulting from congressional designation vs. presidential designation with respect to their ecological context (using measures of biodiversity and climate refugial potential) and sociopolitical context (using measures of local support for conservation and reliance on natural resource-based industries). We found minimal differences between these designation modes for both ecological and sociopolitical variables. These results suggest that presidentially designated protected areas tend to be no more burdensome to local communities and no less valuable for ecological conservation than more widely accepted federal protected areas such as national parks, and they provide new evidence to inform the current debate over national monuments.

From 4-7 November 2019, over 50 scientists, conservation experts, natural resource managers, and policymakers from 13 countries gathered in Poiana Brasov to advance the practice of connectivity conservation in Romania and the wider Carpathian Mountains; one of Europe’s most biodiverse and intact ecosystems. Convened under the leadership of the BearConnect Project Research Consortium, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and the IUCN WCPA Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group(CCSG), the workshop brought together diverse stakeholders to participate in an innovative exercise using field data, results from spatial, genetic and ecological analyses, and the now published IUCNGuidelines for Conserving Connectivity through Ecological Networks and Corridors to contribute to more effective ecological connectivity conservation.

This report provides direction and it intended to serve as a blueprint for the Blackfeet Nation, which may then propose specific collision-reducing mitigation projects for further development, design, and construction.