Implementation
Conservation planning is a process that identifies and prioritizes lands that encompass important natural and/or cultural resources across the landscape (e.g., critical watersheds, habitat for rare or threatened species) and develops protection and management strategies for these lands. Science is at the core of planning, but the science is informed by groups of stakeholders using their on-the-ground knowledge and expertise. Where planning is the process, conservation design is the product. It can be a series of maps or data layers that illustrate the location of key focal landscapes and priority resources, or combined into decision support tools that can inform managers and conservations about the quality, quantity, and location of habitat needed to protect biodiversity. The successful conservation design product will provide public land managers, NGOs, and private landowners the ability to incorporate landscape data into their own local land-use decisions. The overall goal from the planning process and design products is to create interconnected reserves of managed lands that are resilient to the many environmental changes that are occurring rapidly on the landscape and can sustain biodiversity today and tomorrow.'
Find below an overview of conservation planning science, GIS resources that aid in planning, products from our conservation design project, and online learning courses for partners wanting to utilize LCC-funded decision support tools in their conservation work. This area of the portal provides our community with vital information in order to accomplish the vision of landscape-scale conservation planning and design. Conservation planning is a process that identifies and prioritizes lands that encompass important natural and/or cultural resources across the landscape (e.g., critical watersheds, habitat for rare or threatened species) and develops protection and management strategies for these lands. Science is at the core of planning, but the science is informed by groups of stakeholders using their on-the-ground knowledge and expertise.
Where planning is the process, conservation design is the product. It can be a series of maps or data layers that illustrate the location of key focal landscapes and priority resources, or combined into decision support tools that can inform managers and conservations about the quality, quantity, and location of habitat needed to protect biodiversity. The successful conservation design product will provide public land managers, NGOs, and private landowners the ability to incorporate landscape data into their own local land-use decisions. The overall goal from the planning process and design products is to create interconnected reserves of managed lands that are resilient to the many environmental changes that are occurring rapidly on the landscape and can sustain biodiversity today and tomorrow.
Find below an overview of conservation planning science, GIS resources that aid in planning, products from our conservation design project, and online learning courses for partners wanting to utilize LCC-funded decision support tools in their conservation work.
Appalachian Naturescape Conservation Design
Well-connected landscapes are necessary to sustain many of the natural and cultural resources important to the Appalachian region today and into the future. If these large connected areas are to endure and be resilient to impending environmental changes, it will require a collaborative effort involving many organizations and reaching across jurisdictional and political boundaries. The outcome of the Appalachian LCC Conservation Planning process and modeling is a dynamic ‘Conservation Blueprint’ or 'Landscape Conservation Design' called NatureScape. This is a dynamic or living design envisioned as an ongoing consultation with the conservation community - continuously incorporating new information and datasets as well as engaging subject-matter experts and committed stakeholders. Phase I and II of this effort are described below. NatureScape Map
Conservation Planning & GIS
A major role of the LCC is to think about and facilitate conservation planning at a larger spatial and temporal scale. Although there is a plethora of successful conservation agencies doing work on multiple scales throughout Appalachia, these efforts are often limited in scope. In order to accomplish the vision of landscape-scale conservation planning, the LCC has developed this integrated platform -- a planning tool -- for broad dissemination of key conservation literature, analytical products and information, and other resources to help guide land managers with on-the-ground conservation action throughout the region. In this section of the portal you will find a framework that supports a systematic conservation planning effort, ranging from setting conservation targets to ultimately measuring conservation success. The web page navigation is presented as a series to allow the reader to progress in an intuitive and strategic planning manner. In addition, products such as a web-enabled map viewer or predictive modeling results and decision support tools that the user select key input variables can be dynamically executed.
Conservation Planning Atlas
The Appalachian LCC Conservation Planning Atlas (CPA) is a platform for data discovery, sharing and collaboration for stakeholders throughout the Appalachian LCC region. With the CPA you can search for spatial datasets, visualize LCC-supported projects, and learn more about conservation science and design in the region.
