Intertwine - Integrating Community Based Conservation with Large Landscape Conservation

The Regional Conservation Strategy for the Greater Portland-Vancouver Region (RCS) is a product of The Intertwine Alliance—a broad coalition of over 80 public, civic, private, and nonprofit organizations dedicated to building a world-class system of parks, trails, and natural areas.  The RCS covers 3,000 square miles along the Columbia River and nine counties.  It presents a broad regional view of conservation while highlighting ongoing efforts and potential actions at the local level. It is a starting point for future collaboration and provides a larger context for local efforts and serves as a framework for future strategic conservation actions.

The RCS calls for specific outcomes that would result in the protection of a diversity of habitat types, plants, and animals across the urban and rural landscape; acquisition, restoration, and management of habitat connectivity for fish and wildlife; and long-term protection of the ecological integrity of streams, wetlands, rivers, and floodplains. It spells out how recommendations can be integrated with myriad local, state, and federal conservation plans, initiatives, and regulations and describes options for increased collaboration to avoid competition and redundancy and better leverage resources.

RCS focuses on the urban and urbanizing metropolitan region that has received too little attention in previous conservation plans and addresses connections with rural landscapes.  A scientifically based land prioritization model generates information that helps prioritize conservation strategies at a variety of geographic scales – from entire region to local neighborhood; and identifies urbanized habitats as part of a collective effort to preserve the region’s biodiversity.