Facilitating Conservation Planning and Design at Multiple Scales in the Northeast Region

The North Atlantic LCC is supporting an integrated program of information management, science delivery and conservation design in the Northeast Region that addresses multiple scale and format needs for conservation decision making.  The LCC is managing information and facilitating conservation design at larger scales (regional, sub-regional, and landscape) while developing and supporting a partner network to deliver and help partners apply information and tools at more local scales.  The initial focus at the regional scale is a collaboration with state fish and wildlife agencies and LCC staff to support the development of regional Conservation Opportunity Areas (COAs) for State Wildlife Action Plans that informs the identification of state-level COAs.  Initial landscape-scale conservation designs are focused in large watersheds where there are active partnerships working.  An initial landscape-scale conservation design pilot facilitated by the LCC and FWS in the Connecticut River Watershed is providing an opportunity for a broad range of partners agree on common goals and objectives for the watershed; to learn about and inform both the process and products for landscape scale conservation; and apply a systematic approach for linking together landscape change, assessments of ecosystems and species and decision support through conservation design. The initial results and lessons learned from the Connecticut River Watershed pilot will be presented in the context of the larger multiple-scale approach.