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. Language and concepts we drafted and advocated have been included in federal and states bills, most significantly the new federal infrastructure package and corridors legislation in Colorado. We have continued to foster a community of collaboration by working with partners to advance policies and provided support to states and other partners in leveraging federal funding for crossing structure projects. See Schedule O. OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 5: OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 6: OTHER PROJECTS”

“The Center develops strategies that amplify community and governmental conservation efforts through 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 manage 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.”

“In November 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, now referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which includes multiple provisions related to conserving fish and wildlife. One element of this historic legislation is a dedicated $350 million competitive grant program called the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program. In order to assist eligible applicants and partners to understand and take advantage of these new funding and policy opportunities, the Center created A Toolkit for Developing Effective Projects Under the Federal Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program. The document provides an overview of the program and other fish and wildlife provisions in the law; offers suggestions for how applicants and their partners can engage; and includes best practices, examples, and resources for designing effective wildlife crossing projects.In an effort to further support states that might want to take advantage of these new funding opportunities, the Center partnered with three other nonprofit organizations to host a three-part webinar series designed to raise awareness about wildlife infrastructure. The series looked at the problem of wildlife-vehicle collisions, the solutions, and the benefits of reducing motorist crashes involving wildlife and reconnecting habitat across roadways; examined the role of data collection tools, hotspot analyses, and partnerships in identifying where to invest in wildlife infrastructure; and provided an overview of new, expanded, and existing programs that can be used to pay for animal road crossing structures and other mitigation measures for wildlife.As evidenced by numerous recent policy initiatives, such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, that focus on conserving wildlife corridors, reconnecting habitat areas, and developing highway crossings for wildlife, awareness of the importance of ecological connectivity is on the rise. The Center researched, compiled, and summarized the most significant federal and state policies enacted from 2007 to 2021 in support of connectivity and published them as the Ecological Connectivity Policy Compendium. The compendium also includes samples of regional, tribal, and county connectivity policies. In this new publication, the Center expands upon its work to monitor, review, and document connectivity policies to serve as a reference for those interested in the larger effort to stitch back together landscapes that have been fragmented.In addition to significant work at the nationwide level, staff from the Center have also been coordinating efforts to study the impacts of roads on wildlife in our biodiverse home state of Montana. We have brought together conservation partners, local businesses, and residents to gather baseline information for decisionmakers about the landscape fragmentation impacts of two roads leading to and from Yellowstone National ParkMontana Highways 191 and 89. Volunteers help by using the ROaDS smartphone app, which the Center makes widely available to groups working on road ecology projects, to collect data on roadkill and live animal sightings on or near highways. Analysis of this data will ultimately support decisions to implement projects to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and protect life-dependent processes such as animal migration throughout the region.”

“In September 2021, the Center wrapped up a 14-month Linear Infrastructure Safeguards in Asia (LISA) Projectan assessment of the capacity of Asian countries to develop wildlife-friendly linear infrastructure focused on roads, railways, and high voltage power lines. LISA sought to understand Asias existing capacity to provide safeguards, as well as the challenges and barriers that slow their adoption and implementation, to protect Asias diverse wildlife species and their critical habitats from the regions rapidly expanding linear infrastructure. Examples of safeguards include overpasses or underpasses that allow animals to safely cross over or under highways or railroad tracks. LISA laid a strong foundation for a capacity-building program that will promote measures that avoid, minimize, and mitigate environmental impacts through better linear infrastructure policies, planning, design, construction, and monitoring. The project provided for the creation of training materials, in-depth reports, and virtual capacity-building workshops. These free resources are available for anyone interested in enhancing Asias ability to meet the needs of wildlife and people as it expands roads, railways, and power lines.Building on the initial findings from the LISA project, the Center embarked on a new four-year project with partner, World Wildlife Fund-US, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Launching in September 2021, this project aims to further enhance the development and implementation of effective, high-quality safeguard measures to avoid, lessen and/or mitigate adverse impacts from linear infrastructure development on people and natural resources in Asia. Linear infrastructure can cause wildlife mortality from collisions, electrocutions, and numerous threats that result from habitat loss and fragmentation. The Center is providing technical expertise across the project, titled Asias Linear Infrastructure safeGuarding Nature (ALIGN). The Center will assist in defining best-practices and guidelines to protect nature during development for governments, financiers and engineers. We will also focus heavily on enhancing partnerships with government agencies in Asia and the United States, donors, investors, private companies, civil society organizations, academia, and workforce training institutions. Finally, the Center will continue to expand upon the capacity building materials generated during LISA by developing and conducting training modules in the focal countries of Nepal, India, and Mongolia.Another Connectivity focus of the Centers work on mitigating harm to wildlife from linear infrastructure continues to be Asian elephants. The Center coordinates the Asian Elephant Transport Working Group, an international group of elephant biologists and infrastructure ecologists. The group addresses the growing threat to Asian Elephants from roads, rails, and canals, and proposes solutions to protect this endangered species. In December 2021, the group released a report Protecting Asian Elephants from Linear Transport Infrastructure, co-authored by staff from the Center, to advise on solutions to the growing threat to elephants from infrastructure development. To raise awareness of the reports content, the Center coordinated a webinar for an international audience presented by experts from the working group, including Center staff. In addition, on behalf of the Asian Elephant Transport Working Group, the Centers senior conservationist facilitated a session about addressing infrastructure impacts during the 3rd Meeting of the Asian Elephant Range States in April 2022. The resulting Kathmandu Declaration for Asian Elephant Conservation highlights the region-wide efforts of the working group and makes the commitment to promote national guidelines for better safeguarding elephants and other wildlife from infrastructure.The Center also continues to draft, support adoption of, and promote implementation of global connect”

“The Center and our fiscally sponsored project, the Network for Landscape Conservation, have entered the 4th year of the Landscape Conservation Catalyst Fund Project. The project awarded its 2021 Catalyst Fund grants in September 2021, totaling $330,000, to 15 Landscape Conservation Partnerships from throughout the United States. Launched in 2019 and awarding grants annually, the Catalyst Fund aims to accelerate the pace and practice of collaborative landscape conservation and stewardship across the US. Funds will be used to advance partnerships efforts to protect the ecological, cultural, and community values of the landscapes they call home. Grants are made to partnerships demonstrating a genuinely collaborative approach to conservation, involving a variety of stakeholders and often including historically marginalized communities who have been excluded from previous land-management decisions. In particular, a portion of the Fund is specifically dedicated to supporting Indigenous leadership in landscape conservation.The Center also coordinated the 11th Annual Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent Symposium, "Planning for the Future of the Crown," which took place virtually in January 2022. It brought together Tribes, First Nations, organizations, agencies, and individuals interested in exploring co-management opportunities and shaping the future of this ecosystem that straddles the US and Canada. A featured topic was Co-Management & Conservation in the Crown: The Indigenous Experience, with speakers representing Tribes and First Nations, accompanied by the Centers Director of Government Affairs. In FY22, the Center assumed a fiscal sponsor and supporting role for the United States Biosphere Network (USBN), a voluntary network representing the 28 biosphere regions located in the United States. Biosphere regions are based on the idea that people and nature are not separate. In these spectacular places, citizens and organizations cooperate to enhance quality of life by maintaining the beauty and benefits of nature for local economies. The Center is lending its science, policy, and capacity-building expertise to help strengthen the network of biosphere regions by providing them with organizational management, strategic counsel, infrastructure, and access to other national networks and partnerships. The 28 U.S. biosphere regions are located throughout the continental United States, the U.S. Caribbean, Alaska, and Hawaii.”