To provide observations and information on the emerging fields of landscape scale conservation, heritage preservation, and sustainable community development.
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Six months ago, in January 2021, the Biden administration announced a plan to protect 30 percent of the country’s land and water by 2030 (Executive Order 14008). In May, four federal agencies jointly released a preliminary report, entitled Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful, which outlined – in broad strokes – how the administration hoped […]
Spanning two Canadian provinces, Pimachiowin Aki was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018. It’s one of only 39 “mixed” natural-cultural landscapes recognized by World Heritage designation. What is most noteworthy about the site is its innovative management approach that stems from a joint understanding of nature and culture via a bottom-up partnership between four Anishinaabe First Nations communities and provincial government representatives.
How much of our planet needs to be protected to conserve its biodiversity? Renowned biologist, naturalist, and author E.O. Wilson proposed saving half the planet is the amount of protected marine and land habitats required to save 80 percent of the world’s species. More recently a global scientific consensus has emerged around a more specific formula – to conserve 30 percent of the planet’s lands and waters by 2030. How can this be achieved?
This issue of the Living Landscape Observer is focused on the big ideas for conserving the planet. Saving America’s Amazon: The threat to our nation’s most biodiverse River by Ben Raines takes us deep into one of those places that need our best ideas on protecting one of our most valuable, but little know watersheds – the Mobile River system and specifically the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. Beautifully written and illustrated, this book is a testament to why we need to act now.
The events of the past year, along with the ongoing crisis of global climate change, all underscore the need for a robust system of protected areas that can serve as sites of dialogue, research, and rejuvenation. But how do we ensure that these sites, which vary tremendously in their scale and their approaches to land management, remain connected to one another? What mechanisms can be put in place to facilitate knowledge exchange among staff, partners, and volunteers? And how can we continue to bridge the artificial divides of science / humanities and nature / culture that (still) remain so pervasive?
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