Lessons from Previous Efforts to Organize Large Landscape Scale Conservation

As early as the 1930s, the Ecological Society of America called for protecting large areas representing each ecosystem type. By the early 1990s it was apparent to conservation activists and scientists that existing protected areas were losing species and function because they were often too small, in the wrong places and were becoming islands. Paseo Pantera, the “Path of the Panther” or Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, was a pioneering effort to link large habitat blocks. In 1991 the Wildlands Project (now Wildlands Network) launched an effort to create a North American-scale system of large connected protected areas focused on top carnivores, wide-ranging species, and ecosystem function. In 1993 the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative was founded to ensure connectivity and enhance protection in that part of the Rocky Mountains and adjacent areas. Similar large-scale conservation efforts emerged in the late 90s around the globe, including Australia, Russia, and southern Africa. These large-scale conservation initiatives have generated similar lessons, the most important being the need to add value to existing conservation work. They must bring a bold vision & inspiration, new funding, science to bear on goals, a geographically broad structure for advocacy, institution & community building, and information sharing. There are other lessons as well—the importance of good leaders, the right core of founders, the use of iconic species and places to gain support for the less dramatic and honesty in addressing conflicts of interest among NGOs.