#NHA30: Tales from the Towpaths
June 1, 2014
To provide observations and information on the emerging fields of landscape scale conservation, heritage preservation, and sustainable community development.
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The Hawaiian Islands were created by a chain of volcanic hot spots in the Pacific and long settled by voyageurs who travelled thousands of miles across open water. The impacts and adaptation on both the nature and culture of the islands present lessons for future of resource conservation. So it was fitting that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) held its first ever World Conservation Congress on the islands.
What happens when a highway project, long planned to improve the functionality of the overall transportation system, runs up against new designations that look at the value of resources on a landscape scale? How can infrastructure development manage this changing landscape? After all it does not look like this kind of thinking is going away. Read the back story and some recommendations for the future.
In November 2015 the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a report “An Evaluation of the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives”, which concluded that a landscape approach is needed to meet the nation’s conservation challenges and that the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) provide a framework for addressing that need. The NAS undertook the study pursuant to a Congressional directive to evaluate the LCC program.
It is easy to acknowledge our current state in UNESCO’s international Man and the Biosphere (MAB) program, but neglect to see how we got to this point. As one of the pioneers in large landscape conservation, biosphere reserves paved the path for many future landscape-scale efforts over the past several decades. Yet, most people in the United States are unfamiliar with the term, biosphere reserve, or assume the program has dissolved because of its long period of inactivity. Some people are trying to change this perception.
In the world of both nature conservation and historic preservation mitigation has become a hot concept. How can partners work on a landscape scale to address issues of documentation, setting priorities, and incorporating cultural resources into what has been traditionally a more site by site nature based strategy?
The Hawaiian Islands were created by a chain of volcanic hot spots in the Pacific and long settled by voyageurs who travelled thousands of miles across open water. The impacts and adaptation on both the nature and culture of the islands present lessons for future of resource conservation. So it was fitting that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) held its first ever World Conservation Congress on the islands.
What happens when a highway project, long planned to improve the functionality of the overall transportation system, runs up against new designations that look at the value of resources on a landscape scale? How can infrastructure development manage this changing landscape? After all it does not look like this kind of thinking is going away. Read the back story and some recommendations for the future.
In November 2015 the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a report “An Evaluation of the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives”, which concluded that a landscape approach is needed to meet the nation’s conservation challenges and that the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) provide a framework for addressing that need. The NAS undertook the study pursuant to a Congressional directive to evaluate the LCC program.
It is easy to acknowledge our current state in UNESCO’s international Man and the Biosphere (MAB) program, but neglect to see how we got to this point. As one of the pioneers in large landscape conservation, biosphere reserves paved the path for many future landscape-scale efforts over the past several decades. Yet, most people in the United States are unfamiliar with the term, biosphere reserve, or assume the program has dissolved because of its long period of inactivity. Some people are trying to change this perception.
In the world of both nature conservation and historic preservation mitigation has become a hot concept. How can partners work on a landscape scale to address issues of documentation, setting priorities, and incorporating cultural resources into what has been traditionally a more site by site nature based strategy?