The National Workshop on Large Landscape Conservation

October 22 - 24, 2014

By default, large landscape conservation initiatives involve a variety of stakeholders, draw upon a variety of research disciplines, and force attention to a variety of concerns. Maximizing scarce resources and tackling issues at the scale they occur therefore requires not just the science and management to suit the job, but also the right team. It also requires that successful initiatives take full advantage of off-team partnerships and synergies, evolving when necessary. These necessities present challenges and pitfalls, but are not insurmountable. Innovative partnerships have been shown to be particularly effective at increasing both the reach and effect of large landscape conservation work. This panel will review lessons-learned in recent conservation partnership initiatives. It will review how teams were assembled, how responsibilities were assigned, how initiatives interacted with new stakeholders or other efforts, and how the barriers of working at scale, across disciplines, and with multiple players were overcome. Panelists will speak to their experiences with the Sentinel Landscapes project, a DOD-led pilot program to conserve rural working lands, the Longleaf Stewardship Fund, a multi-stakeholder initiative to preserve and restore the longleaf pine ecosystem across the Southeastern U.S., and the role that large private landowners can play in seeding or anchoring broader conservation work. Apart from providing information on the attributes or approaches that proved successful, the panel will also speak to emerging trends, constraints, and opportunities that will shape work in the near future and what these changes hold in store for achieving landscape-level conservation goals.