Resources

This U.S. Forest Service report summarizes the challenges and anticipated benefits of making a national commitment to a systematic network of wildlife crossing structures to increase driver and animal safety. The authors explore the high cost of wildlife-vehicle collisions and the challenges to transforming the U.S. road network to proactively account for the needs of wildlife. The report then catalogs the myriad safety, ecological, economic, and social benefits anticipated to accrue from investing in highway crossings for wildlife. Finally, it provides recommendations for advancing solutions and building upon successful efforts to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions.

The purpose of this report is to illustrate through four case studies how values of diversity, equity, and inclusion have strengthened landscape conservation projects across the United States.

This toolkit provides an overview of the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program and other fish and wildlife provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, suggestions for how applicants and their partners can engage, and best practices, examples, and resources for designing effective wildlife crossing projects in accordance with each of the grant application criterion of the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program.

This infographic defines many of the terms used when talking about ecological corridors, and uses an aerial-view graphic of a corridor project to help illustrate them.

ARC Solutions (a fiscally sponsored project of the Center) worked with its partners and cooperating agencies to compile this series of stories to celebrate existing and planned wildlife crossing projects aimed at making our highways safer for both people and wildlife. Included are projects from 11 western states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

In the same ways that linkages support species of concern, they may also increase the movement of unwanted species. This infographic explores this area of research on ecological corridors.

Connecting landscape-scale conservation partnerships through a national network will be essential to achieving the Biden Administration’s ambitious goals around biodiversity (“30 x 30” initiative), equity, and climate change. This report commissioned by the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and the Alaska Conservation Foundation provides recommendations for building back a better national framework that supports landscape conservation efforts across the United States.

Now that nearly a decade has passed since U.S. Forest Service included explicit requirements for maintaining or restoring ecological connectivity in its 2012 Planning Rule, it is timely to assess how the agency has implemented this connectivity mandate. The Center for Large Landscape Conservation conducted research on challenges and opportunities for integrating ecological connectivity into national forest planning and management. The following findings and recommendations—which address 1) science, 2) planning, 3) management, 4) partnerships and 5) regional coordination— are drawn from 45 key-informant interviews with Forest Service staff and partner organizations, and an analysis of 17 draft and final forest plans revised under the 2012 Rule.

Across the western United States, many ungulate herds must migrate seasonally to access resources and avoid harsh winter conditions. Because these migration paths cover vast landscapes (in other words migration distances up to 150 miles [241 kilometers]), they are increasingly threatened by roads, fencing, subdivisions, and other development. Over the last decade, many new tracking studies have been conducted on migratory herds, and analytical methods have been developed that allow for population-level corridors and stopovers to be mapped and prioritized. 

This infographic answers the question “What is a corridor?” and provides examples of different types of ecological corridors.