Climate Conservation DBA Center for Large Landscape Conservation

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“OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 4: NATIONAL WILDLIFE CORRIDORS & CROSSINGS - From climate adaptation to wildlife migration, connectivity conservation is the most effective strategy to conserve nature at a large scale in much of the fragmented temperate and tropical regions of the world. While corridor science is decades old, its implementation has been slow and inconsistent. Policy efforts to identify, prioritize and protect ecological connectivity and wildlife corridors remain in the early stages. Through the past year, CLLC has made great strides in this arena. Language and concepts we drafted and advocated for have been included in federal and states bills. We have continued to foster a community of collaboration by working with partners at the regional and county levels to advance policies. We have succeeded in gaining traction for implementation of connectivity practices on the ground. See Schedule O. OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 5: ADVANCING CONSERVATION SCIENCEThe Center for Large Landscape Conservation is currently engaged in a global analysis of conservation corridor efficacy. This 5-year project uses empirical evidence from "real" landscapes (as opposed to experimental systems or theoretical models) to identify characteristics of corridors that successfully facilitate animal movement between habitat patches. The results of this research will help land use planners and conservationists recognize and promote more effective corridors using the lessons learned from studying real-world corridors.The Center also looks at habitation fragmentation through the lens of landscape health. The emergence of SARS CoV 2, the novel coronavirus that causes the pandemic disease known COVID 19, highlights the public health impacts of habitat fragmentation. Tropical bats are known to be the primary reservoirs of novel coronaviruses and habitat fragmentation facilitates disease spillover. CLLC has developed a new framework to assess and to address this challenge through a program focus on Land-Use Induced Spillover. As a contractor on a 5-year research project, focusing on Dynamics of Zoonotic Systems: Human-Bat-Pathogen Interactions, the Center is aiming to re-establish winter/spring foraging habitat for bats (locally known as flying-foxes) in Australia by embedding modelled restoration targets into existing government- and privately-funded revegetation programs. If habitat loss drives spillover, then strategic restoration of critical habitat should provide a sustainable pathway for intervention. OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 6: OTHER PROJECTSThe Center also acts as fiscal sponsor for ARC Solutions (ARC) and engages on partnership projects with this innovative collaborative. ARCAnimal Road Crossingis an interdisciplinary partnership working to facilitate new thinking, new methods, new materials and new solutions for wildlife crossing structures. In this partnership, the Center is providing technical support and coalition building for the construction of a wildlife crossing structure in Liberty Canyon, near Los Angeles. The Liberty Canyon Crossing will reconnect habitat for the areas mountain lion population, which is facing extinction due to habitat fragmentation. The structure will be not only the largest wildlife crossing in the world, but the first major crossing structure built near a major city.ARC, together with its partners and cooperating agencies, recently published Wildlife Crossing Success Stories in the Western States, a series of stories to celebrate existing and planned wildlife crossing projects aimed at making our highways safer for both people and wildlife. This initial version focuses on efforts to protect wildlife movement corridors and prevent wildlife-vehicle collisions made by 11 western states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, but will eventually be expanded to highlight stories from across North America. This showcase of initiatives features a diversity of species”

“The Center develops strategies that amplify community and governmental conservation efforts though tactical support in science, policy, community networking, and climate change resiliency planning. Our work defines and advances best practices in landscape connectivity throughout the U. S. and around the world. We engage in four ways. First, we support community-based planning to restore, protect, and mange large landscapes. We work with communities to plan for and restore the integrity and natural connectivity of the landscapes within which they live and work. Second, we develop and apply science to reconnect fragmented landscapes and provide safe passage for wildlife and people. Third, the Center connects professionals and decision makers to share information and resources worldwide. We serve as a hub for information, tools, news, and best practices. The Center is directly networked with over 28,000 conservation professionals and organizations around the globe. And finally, we inform new policy and law to support and accelerate large landscape conservation locally, nationally, and globally. We are developing international standards for corridors and connectivity areas, which is key to supporting a systems approach to protecting, restoring, and managing large landscapes.”

“The Network for Landscape Conservation (NLC)s regranting program, Landscape Conservation Catalyst Fund, continues to thrive. The original $1.9 million project is designed to accelerate the pace of conservation at scale across the United States through targeted support of collaborative Landscape Conservation and continues to grow in support and funding. The Catalyst Fund has regranted over $650,000 since 2019 and will continue to do so, supporting key collaborative processes and activities to build critical capacity and forward conservation momentum in Landscape Conservation Partnerships.Beginning in summer 2020 and continuing into 2021, the Network for Landscape Conservation has hosted a Virtual Policy Forum Series on the Future of Landscape Conservation. The purpose of this series is to foster a national dialogue on collaborative landscape conservation and the challenges and opportunities necessary for success. Through these conversations, we fill an important information-sharing and network-building niche by engaging policy leaders from a broad and diverse spectrum of organizations with the aim of improving the policies, resources, collaboration, and clarity on an emerging framework for landscape conservation in North America. Four well attended forums thus far, have provided a useful resource for policy-makers and practitioners alike as we navigate the changing political, economic, social, and environmental landscapes.”

“The Center continues to serve as the secretariat for the IUCN WCPA Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group (CCSG), whose membership exceeds 960 in 120 countries. Our staff co-chairs and partners with over 100 specialists in IUCNs Transport Working Group (TWG) and its two subsidiaries, the Asian Elephant Transport Working Group and the Latin America Transport Working Group. In mid-2020, the first-ever IUCN Guidelines for Conserving Connectivity through Ecological Networks and Corridors went to final publication and has received great praise thus far. Key elements of the publication are now being applied around the world, and global ground-testing has been initiated to demonstrate their effective delivery. Spawning from this effort, the Transport Working Group has engaged over 30 contributors from 20 countries to write the first-ever IUCN Guidelines for connectivity conservation impacted by linear transportation infrastructure. The 11-chapter book will be published later in 2021 as part of the IUCN WCPA Best Practice Guidelines. The Center has played a notable role in drafting the book, with staff and consultants supporting the process in numerous ways including serving as co-editors. The Center also continues to develop the International Transportation component of the International Connectivity program to spark a global dialogue and build a body of practice that addresses the significant ecological impacts of infrastructure. As a primary subcontractor of a USAID funded project Building a Foundation for Linear Infrastructure Safeguards in Asia, the Center led an assessment of the capacity of Asian countries to develop wildlife-friendly linear infrastructure (LI), focusing on roads, railways, and electric transmission lines. This year-long project will wrap up in September 2021, with results that help conservationists understand the challenges and barriers that slow the adoption and implementation of safeguards protecting Asias diverse wildlife species and their critical habitats from the regions rapidly expanding LI. Additionally, the Center is developing training materials for use in multiple capacity building workshops seeking to knowledge share and promote the implementation of measures that avoid and mitigate environmental impacts through better planning, design, construction, and monitoring of LI expansion across Asia.”

“The Center targets opportunities to advance wildlife corridors and crossing projects by providing technical, policy, and scientific expertise. We focus on well-crafted policies and replicable projects that offer the greatest potential to pilot innovative approaches, establish best practices, and apply proven solutions. CLLCs successes in this area span from federal legislation to state policies to local on the ground projects and more. Nationally, the Center helped secure infrastructure funding for wildlife crossing structures and other wildlife-related provisions in House Bill 3684 ($400M) and Senate Bill 1931 ($350M); worked with partners to revise the Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act and the Tribal Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act for reintroduction in Congress; and worked with congressional staff and the Biden administration to incorporate funding for connectivity and landscape conservation into the Presidents Budget, congressional appropriations, and legislation. In addition, the Center formedtogether with the US Fish and Wildlife Servicea Road Ecology Task Force to develop policies, practices, and educational opportunities to conserve the threatened Desert Tortoise in the Southwest. Finally, the Center co-published a report, Build Back a Better National Landscape Conservation Framework, calling for a new national framework for landscape conservation. It provides a roadmap for how to achieve the Biden administration's ambitious conservation goals through policy and funding support of a national network of collaborative landscape conservation partnerships.Together with partners, the Center also laid the groundwork for successful state and county wildlife corridors and crossings legislation and agency policies. Center staff drafted and helped secure the unanimous passage of bipartisan habitat connectivity legislation in Colorado and provided technical support and outreach for wildlife crossing policy in Colorado and Virginia and data collection in Montana. The Center also developed a draft connectivity policy framework in collaboration with the Staying Connected Initiativea partnership working in the Northern Appalachians/Acadian region. In addition to helping craft policies for corridors and crossings, the Center is involved in securing funding and providing expertise for implementation, including for two projects near Yellowstone National Park in Montana. The Center, with partners, is carrying out a Wildlife and Transportation Conflict Assessment along US-191, incorporating citizen science data collection along this highway using the ROaDs (Roadkill Observation and Data System) smartphone app. In Montanas Paradise Valley, the Center held a series of four webinars to facilitate community dialogue, expanded citizen science through use of the ROaDs app, and monitored existing bridges along Hwy 89.”