E56
A Real National Conservation Strategy

Friday, October 24, 2014: 1:25 PM-2:55 PM
Meridian B (Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center)
Numerous laws, policies, and programs from local to national scales implicitly or explicitly support the conservation of biological diversity. Although these land protection efforts, including NPS lands, represent an investment in conservation, they have been necessary but insufficient to stem the tide of biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystem services. What is needed now is a cohesive and comprehensive approach for designing this cornerstone strategy. We examine the biological rationale, articulate the current status of a de facto system that already exists, focus on two models that could provide lessons to developing a national system in the US, build the case for why the US needs such a system now, and suggest preliminary steps that can be taken to move towards a vision of building a real national conservation system. 

  • Joel Berger, a Craighead Chair, University of Montana, will discuss the evolution of science and literature on the conservation of species and intact ecosystems. 

  • Jodi Hilty, Executive Director of the Wildlife Conservation Study for the North America Program, will share what a national strategy could achieve, including conserving both our natural heritage and healthy human communities, and present some initial steps needed to move to a strategy.

  • Healy Hamilton, Chief Scientist and Vice President for Conservation Science at NatureServe, will present some of the tools we need to support a conservation strategy - which includes investing in common spatial data layers. Implementation, tools and approaches we need to take to make sure the system is robust, and how we incorporate new things.

  • Ray Sauvajot, Deputy Associate Director of NPS Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate, will present a breakdown of the complex interface that needs to take place in large landscape initiatives between science, policy, and public values.

Moderator:
Elaine Leslie
Session Chair:
Kassandra Hardy
1:25 PM
215
Scaling Up NPS large landscape conservation work
Raymond M. Sauvajot, National Park Service
1:45 PM
216
A Real National Conservation Strategy - 1
Joel Berger, Wildlife Conservation Society
2:05 PM
217
A Real National Conservation Strategy - 2
Healy Hamilton, NatureServe
2:25 PM
218
A Real National Conservation Strategy - 3
Jodi Hilty, Wildlife Conservation Society
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