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Highway Planning on a Landscape Scale: The Next Generation

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.

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National Academy releases report on Large Landscape Conservation   

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.

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The 2016 Federal Budget: How did Large Landscapes Fare?

After months of uncertainty, weeks of negotiations and two short-term extensions to keep the government open, Congress passed and the President signed the 2009 page omnibus spending Bill, titled the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016. How did federal initiatives that support landscape scale work and fund our natural and cultural conservation program fare?

Read More »

Reading: The Science of Open Spaces

My late summer reading list included Charles Curtin’s book The Science of Open Spaces: Theory and Practice for Conserving Large Complex Systems (Island Press 2015). In so many ways this is the book I have been waiting for. As the title promises it tackles working on a landscape scale both on the ground, but also takes a deep scholarly dive into the theories that underpin this work – chaos, complexity and resilience to name just a few.

Read More »

Long Landscapes: How Big is Big Enough?

The conservation movement has embraced the idea of preserving large landscapes as the only way to provide the necessary resilience and protection for the world’s ecosystems challenged by climate change and the impacts of global development. But how large a landscape is large enough?

Read More »

Highway Planning on a Landscape Scale: The Next Generation

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.

Read More »

National Academy releases report on Large Landscape Conservation   

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.

Read More »

The 2016 Federal Budget: How did Large Landscapes Fare?

After months of uncertainty, weeks of negotiations and two short-term extensions to keep the government open, Congress passed and the President signed the 2009 page omnibus spending Bill, titled the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016. How did federal initiatives that support landscape scale work and fund our natural and cultural conservation program fare?

Read More »

Reading: The Science of Open Spaces

My late summer reading list included Charles Curtin’s book The Science of Open Spaces: Theory and Practice for Conserving Large Complex Systems (Island Press 2015). In so many ways this is the book I have been waiting for. As the title promises it tackles working on a landscape scale both on the ground, but also takes a deep scholarly dive into the theories that underpin this work – chaos, complexity and resilience to name just a few.

Read More »

Long Landscapes: How Big is Big Enough?

The conservation movement has embraced the idea of preserving large landscapes as the only way to provide the necessary resilience and protection for the world’s ecosystems challenged by climate change and the impacts of global development. But how large a landscape is large enough?

Read More »