Buying land isn't enough. Building parks won't get it done. Restoring forests and wetlands by themselves is not an answer. Successful conservation requires a comprehensive, regional approach.

Landscape conservation means looking beyond property boundaries and political jurisdictions. A holistic perspective is vital for managing watersheds and habitats and addressing long-term issues such as climate change. With funding scarce, it's also crucial to build partnerships that can set mutual priorities, share resources and collaborate effectively.

As the population grows and development expands, conservation needs to help shape - and not simply react to - decisions about land use and urban infrastructure.

To help landscape conservation succeed, Regional Plan Association and its national planning program, America 2050, have written a report examining initiatives throughout the Northeast and making recommendations for improving conservation efforts that stretch across city and state boundaries.

"Landscapes: Improving Conservation Practice in the Northeast Megaregion" is the result of a two-year-long research effort to study how multi-jurisdictional and multi-objective programs are protecting land and water, and addressing the critical challenges to conservation, including urban growth, creation of transportation and energy infrastructure, limited funding and climate change.

Read the Release | Read the Report (Web) (Print) | Read the Project Summary

RPA and America 2050 Seek Landscape Initiatives for Participation in Peer Exchange Program

Summary

Regional Plan Association and America 2050, RPA's national planning program, are seeking statements of interest from landscape conservation practitioners in the 13-state Northeast megaregion to receive up to $25,000 of funding to participate in a nine-month peer exchange program. We are seeking to pair established organizations or initiatives with a proven track record of success in landscape conservation with emerging organizations or programs with extraordinary promise and commitment.

Landscape-scale conservation initiatives rely on conservation easements to protect the character and function of natural, cultural, and working landscapes. America 2050 and Regional Plan Association have created a Northeast Landscape Initiatives Inventory and Atlas to research how these initiatives use easements and other conservation tools to achieve their goals. 

The Fall 2011 issue of Law and Contemporary Problems, a faculty-edited journal of the Duke University Law School, is devoted entirely to conservation easements and the role landscape-scale conservation planning has in making them effective. The articles also discuss how to assess their conservation benefits and how to incorporate easements into broader regional land use planning efforts.

The 13-state Northeast Megaregion is blessed with an abundance of water resources. Rivers, lakes, bays, and ocean shorelines provide economic benefits, recreational opportunities, and drinking water. Continued urban development, however, has impaired uses in many local watersheds. Waterfront communities are bracing for the sea level rise and increases in riverine and coastal flooding associated with climate change.

Over the next 40 years, billions of dollars will be invested in clean water and flood control projects. With proper planning, these projects can help achieve multiple landscape-scale conservation goals. Many landscape conservation initiatives have developed comprehensive programs that rely on ecosystem services to deliver water quality, flood protection, and a range of additional benefits.

We invite you take an on-line survey (Landscape Conservation Online Tools Survey) about creating web tools for landscape conservation practitioners. The survey includes a list of questions to gauge how people might use a large landscape web portal and should take less than 5 minutes to complete. Please complete the survey by the December 9, 2011 deadline.

A major policy focus of the America's Great Outdoors (AGO) report is support for large landscape conservation. Federal Agency programs are increasingly focused on protecting ecosystem function at the broadest of scales. Regional landscape conservation initiatives are benefiting from new Federal funding sources and technical assistance. These initiatives are also leveraging the research and policy behind the AGO report to enhance their strategic efforts.

Over fifty environmental organizations, including The Nature Conservancy and The Appalachian Mountain Club, came together to release a Policy Agenda for Conserving New England's Forests. The report outlines actions to promote forest conservation as a way to help protect important ecosystem services, while also serving as an economic driver for the region. The report further concludes that landscape-scale preservation is the right approach, calling for protection efforts in several of the important landscapes highlighted in the AGO report, including the North Woods of Maine and the Connecticut River Watershed of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The report also highlights the important role that the US Forest Service's Forest Legacy Program will play in achieving landscape goals, echoing a similar recommendation made in the AGO report.

The use of the AGO report to create policies for the New England region shows its potential to improve landscape practice; hopefully, this is only the beginning.

Earlier this fall, the Nature Conservancy, the Forest Society of Maine, and the Appalachian Mountain Club, added 10,000 acres to previously protected parcels near the town of Jackman, Maine. This acquisition is a small, but significant contribution to a conservation project which envisions the protection of two million acres of forested land in Northern Maine. The project will cost an estimated $30 million.

The acquisition comes after 25 years of work to protect the significant ecological features in the area. The Jackman landscape includes ecologically sensitive areas such as the Moose River, the No. 5 Mountain, and the No. 5 bog. The area, which will be called the Moose River--No. 5 Preserve, is valuable for its regional biodiversity, timber stands, and role in drawing eco-tourism and recreation to the region.

More information about planning your visit can be found here.