Climate Conservation DBA Center for Large Landscape Conservation

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“OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 4: UNITED STATES CONNECTIVITY PROGRAM - Connectivity conservation is the most effective strategy to conserve landscapes at a large scale, supporting climate adaptation and protecting wildlife movement in our fragmented natural world. Last year, the Center made strides in this effort by providing decisionmakers and stakeholders with the latest available science to inform connectivity policies and projects. We also continued to foster a community of collaboration by working with partners at the federal, state, regional, and county levels to advance corridors and crossings policies and provide technical assistance to leverage federal funding for crossing structure projects. See Schedule O”

“The Center develops strategies that amplify community and governmental conservation efforts through tactical support in science, policy, networking, and on-the-ground project implementation. Our work defines and advances best practices in landscape connectivity throughout the U. S. and around the world. We engage in four ways: (1) We develop and apply science to reconnect fragmented landscapes and provide safe passage for wildlife and people. (2) We inform new policy and law, and develop international standards, to support and accelerate large landscape conservation locally, nationally, and globally. (3) We connect professionals and decision makers to share information and resources by coordinating and participating in networks worldwide. As a hub for information, tools, news, and best practices, we are directly networked with more than 28,000 conservation professionals and organizations around the globe. (4) We support community-based planning and project implementation to protect and manage large landscapes. With these communities, we work to restore the integrity and natural connectivity of the landscapes and plan for greater resilience to the effects of climate change.”

“The Center for Large Landscape Conservation is working with federal, state, and tribal partners to successfully roll out the $350-million Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program, funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021. To assist states and other eligible applicants in understanding these new funding and policy opportunities, the Center created and jointly developed a number of free online resources, including toolkits, guides, and webinars, that we continue to update and distribute through relevant networks. Ultimately, the Center is working with coalition partners to ensure the pilot program is successful in the hopes that Congress permanently authorizes and fully funds it in the next infrastructure bill. At the state level, the Center helped secure an additional $500,000 this past year for the new Colorado Wildlife Safe Passages Fund, which was established last year due to legislation we helped develop. The fund is supporting the Colorado Wildlife and Transportation Alliance, on which we serve, and contributed to five new wildlife crossings projects in the state, collaboratively identified as top priorities. Colorados legislation is inspiring the establishment of similar wildlife crossings accounts in other states seeking to dedicate the matching funds necessary to unlock new federal infrastructure dollars for wildlife crossings. With this unprecedented level of both national and state investments in wildlife crossings, the U.S. Program has developed and contributed to several science-based reports and other products that will inform policies and decisions for conserving ecological connectivity from local to national levels, especially in regard to wildlife crossing structures and other measures to reconnect fragmented habitat. Finally, the Center continues working with the Fort Belknap Indian Community (FBIC) on climate adaptation planning and forest restoration. The Little Rocky Mountains in north central Montana are a sacred site for the Gros Ventre (Aaniiih) and Assiniboine (Nakoda) Nations, and these residents of the FBIC are longtime stewards of the landscape. In 2022, the Fort Belknap Indian Community finalized its Climate Change Adaptation Report, with support by experts at the Center. The comprehensive document addresses a broad range of climate impacts from human health to forest health, from fisheries to first foods, to access to services and care facilities; and offers recommendations to approach them.”

“As an international leader in connectivity conservation, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation works to eliminate barriers to wildlife movement and reduce human-wildlife conflict. In recent months, the Center completed the A.P.E. (Assess. Protect. Evaluate.) Project, which addressed the threats of rapidly expanding linear infrastructure (LI) development to great ape and gibbon habitats in Africa and Asia. The project aims to provide scientists, stakeholders and decision makers with the knowledge and tools to safeguard ape and gibbon populations in the region against current and future LI. The Center continued work for the second year of a four-year project, with partner World Wildlife Fund-US, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The project aims to 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). With our expertise in road ecology, we are helping to define best practices and guidelines to protect nature during development for governments, financiers, and engineers. The Center also is leading the creation of capacity-building materials by developing and conducting training modules for professionals engaged with linear infrastructure projects and conservation in Asia.In tandem with our on-the-ground work in many countries, the Center continues to help shape global environmental policy and elevate ecological connectivity as an essential component of biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation. As an NGO observer to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and in its capacity as secretariat of the IUCN's Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group, the Center was instrumental in bringing increased attention to ecological connectivity through the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). This milestone agreement was adopted in November 2022 and now serves as the primary strategic plan for biodiversity conservation among 196 signatory countries. Since the GBFs adoption, the Center has worked with numerous partners to support its implementation at local, national, and international levels. In particular, the Center is contributing guidance on how to effectively incorporate ecological corridors into land use planning to achieve well-connected protected area networks on land and at sea a core consideration of the GBFs most recognized target of protecting 30% of the planet by 2030 (30x30).”

“The Center and the Network for Landscape Conservation have entered the 5th year of the Landscape Conservation Catalyst Fund Project. The project awarded its 2022 Catalyst Fund grants in September 2022, totaling more than $330,000, to thirteen 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 Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent organizes an annual gathering of people across sectors in the region, including land managers, indigenous communities, non-profits, local businesses and community leaders to share ideas, celebrate good work, and explore opportunities to enhance and maintain the quality of life, local livelihoods, and healthy ecosystems of this diverse and ecologically critical transboundary region. In 2023, CLLC catalyzed a leadership team revitalization that acknowledged post-Covid challenges, set priorities, confirmed enthusiasm for and value of the work, hired a new coordinator, and launched planning of a fall convening on the theme of reconciliation slated for October 2023.In FY23, the Center continued as a fiscal sponsor for the United States Biosphere Network (USBN), a voluntary network representing the 28 biosphere regions located throughout the continental United States, the U.S. Caribbean, Alaska, and Hawaii. 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 and access to other national networks and partnerships. We are also providing communications support for the Network, and in FY23 launched website landing pages and a quarterly e-newsletter that is helping connect, inform, and share best practices with hundreds of individuals associated with the 28 biosphere regions.”