Landscape conservation cooperatives: frequently asked questions

              Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
Frequently Asked Questions
Conservation in Action 	 February 2012
1) Why are Landscape Conservation
Cooperatives being established?
Protecting North America’s natural
and cultural resources and landscapes
is essential to sustaining our quality
of life and our economy. Native fish
and wildlife species depend on healthy
rivers, streams, wetlands, forests,
grasslands and coastal areas to thrive.
Managing these natural and cultural
resources and landscapes, however,
has become increasingly complex.
Land use changes and impacts
such as drought, wildfire, habitat
fragmentation, contaminants, pollution,
invasive species, disease and a rapidly
changing climate can threaten human
populations as well as native species
and their habitats.
Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
(LCCs) are public-private partnerships
composed of states, tribes, federal
agencies, non-governmental
organizations, universities and others.
LCCs recognize these challenges
transcend political and jurisdictional
boundaries and require a more
networked approach to conservation—
holistic, collaborative, adaptive and
grounded in science—to ensure the
sustainability of North America’s land,
water, wildlife and cultural resources.
The LCC network is composed of 22
individual LCCs, several of which have
relationships with conservation entities
in Canada or Mexico.
2) How did LCCs come about?
In signing Secretarial Order No. 3289
on Sept. 14, 2009, Interior Secretary
Ken Salazar directed Department
of the Interior bureaus to stimulate
the development of the LCC network
as a response to landscape-scale
stressors, including climate change.
The cooperatives are intended to work
interactively with DOI Climate Science
Centers to help coordinate regional
adaptation efforts.
While LCCs are integral to climate
change adaptation efforts, they are
not climate-centric. They will provide
science support for conservation
activities that address a variety of
broad-scale land use pressures and
landscape-scale stressors—including
but not limited to climate change— that
affect wildlife, water, land and cultural
resources.
3) What is the role of an LCC?
The role of an individual LCC
is: to leverage funding, staff and
resources; to develop common goals;
to develop tools and strategies to
inform landscape-scale planning and
management decisions; to link science
to management; and to facilitate
information exchange among partners.
The role of the national LCC network
is: to provide a forum for national and
international conservation planning; to
integrate the efforts of the 22 LCCs;
and to facilitate efforts across and
among individual LCCs.
The role of an LCC partner is: to
define and share individual landscape-scale
priorities; to help shape a
common landscape-scale conservation
framework for science and conservation
actions; and to provide feedback to
the LCC on the effectiveness of LCC
products and approaches.
4) How do LCCs meet unfilled
conservation needs?
North America’s landscapes, and
the fish, wildlife, plants and cultural
heritage they support, are increasingly
impacted by threats that affect more
than isolated places or single species.
They tend to threaten multiple
resources and entire landscapes. Often,
these threats are beyond the scope and
reach of any one partner, partnership,
or program. LCCs provide a forum for
partners and partnerships to integrate
efforts.
5) How does the LCC network add value
to existing conservation efforts?
LCCs combine the collective science
capacity, infrastructure, creativity,
perspectives and, sometimes, financial
resources of existing partnerships and
programs to address decision support
needs on a comprehensive scale. They
are a forum for developing a common
understanding of landscape change and
a common vision for adaptation.
6) How are LCCs unique?
LCCs look at whole landscapes
and involve a diverse community of
conservation partners working on
a given landscape. Because many
conservation challenges are so complex
and interconnected with numerous
issues, conservation agencies and
organizations increasingly must
work together across jurisdictional
lines to inform management of
North America’s natural and cultural
resources. LCCs are well-positioned to
enable conservation organizations to do
that on a landscape scale.
Catskill Mountains, New York. USFWS
7) How do LCCs improve data sharing?
LCCs work with partners to determine
what information is needed at what
scale and in what format to help them
make conservation decisions. LCCs
are then building shared information
management systems that link to all
relevant data that decision-makers
need.
8) How do LCCs help improve
communication and coordination across
and within agencies?
LCCs bring together conservation
programs and partners working in the
same geographic areas to agree on a
shared vision for the sustainability of
natural and cultural resources. LCCs
provide a mechanism for diverse
partners to identify where they
can take action to address shared
challenges while understanding how
those actions contribute to their own
organizations’ objectives.
9) How do LCCs help coordinate
science?
LCCs work with partners to compile
information and develop decision
support tools useful to land managers
in addressing pressing science and
management needs. They incorporate
science needs and project information
in conservation frameworks that enable
LCC partners to understand how
projects fit together and to prioritize
next steps.
10) How do LCCs and DOI Climate
Science Centers work together?
The Department of the Interior is
establishing eight Climate Science
Centers. Their scope includes the full
range of natural and cultural resources,
and their focus is on information
needed to manage these resources
in the face of climate change. LCCs
are the CSCs’ primary clients. LCCs
will use this information provided
by the CSCs to support existing or
develop new landscape-scale resource
management plans that will inform
future activities and assist partners in
focusing their management decisions.
11) Why is it important for LCCs to
address cultural and tribal resource
issues?
Through their conservation planning
efforts, cultural and tribal resource
managers identify threats to resources
protected through federal, state, or
local statutory law. LCCs provide
science and resource management
decision-support tools to assess the
condition and needs of these trust
resources as well as multiple resources
across a landscape.
12) How do LCCs work with and build
off of conservation partnerships such
as joint ventures and fish habitat
partnerships?
LCCs synthesize and build on the
current science and conservation work
of existing partnerships, such as fish
habitat partnerships, migratory bird
joint ventures and flyway councils, as
well as water resources, land, coastal,
marine and cultural
partnerships.
They combine
the expertise
of existing
conservation
partnerships
and programs
to increase and
integrate collective
science capacity to
make planning for
multiple resources
across large
landscapes possible.
13) Will LCCs divert attention and
resources from other efforts, such as
state wildlife grants or joint ventures?
No. LCCs recognize joint ventures
and the National Fish Habitat Action
Plan (NFHAP) structure as important,
independent efforts. The excellence of
these programs is vital to the overall
success of American conservation
efforts. Maintaining or increasing
funding to the states through the State
and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program
is fundamental to that collective
effort. Without the expertise and
funding of these three programs, it
would be difficult for LCCs to develop
sustainable landscapes. LCCs are
intended to support these programs
by identifying and funding the mutual
science needs of these organizations
while integrating that science and
partner goals to develop a vision for
conservation action. By doing so, LCCs
are intended to reduce redundancy of
effort in the science development arena,
thus saving resources for the effective
implementation of conservation.
14) How do LCCs coordinate across
federal conservation efforts?
LCCs function as forums to align
large-scale federal conservation
effort by sponsoring and promoting
dialogue on specific issues common
to many conservation efforts (e.g.,
climate change, invasive species, land
use and sage grouse) both within an
LCC and across LCCs. A key focus is
identifying potential redundancies and
opportunities to leverage resources
across conservation efforts. LCCs
also serve and interpret data; identify
regional monitoring needs; identify
LCCs are forums for partnerships that allow a region’s private, state and federal
conservation infrastructure to operate as a system rather than as independent
entities. Photo by Brian Jonkers/USFWS
Mule deer and wind turbines in the Columbia Hills of
Washington State. Photo by Mike Schroeder
regional science needs including
research, modeling and syntheses
of existing research; and evaluate/
facilitate decision-support tools.
15) How do LCCs support the efforts
of natural and cultural resource
conservation or land management
organizations?
LCCs develop science-based
conservation plans across a large
geographic scale. The plans are
developed to support the vision
of a broad diversity of partners
and incorporate a mutual and
comprehensive understanding of
change on the landscape. The intent
of this planning component of LCCs is
to inform actions by partnerships and
organizations that add up to something
more than any one organization could
accomplish on its own.
16) How do LCCs coordinate with and
among regional conservation efforts
that cross their boundaries as well as
those of other jurisdictions (e.g. BLM
Rapid Ecoregional Assessments), and
how does this contribute to the total
conservation effort?
LCCs can 1) facilitate conversations
among tribal, state, federal and non-governmental
organizations about
emerging regional challenges and
opportunities as well as the potential
effects of climate change on agriculture
and municipal water supplies; 2)
develop regional conservation,
development and adaptation strategies
to help inform and guide land and
water use planning and other decision-making
processes; and 3) serve as
a clearinghouse to share personnel,
funding and other resources to
implement these regional strategies.
Partners in many LCCs already
participate on management teams
facilitating the development of BLM’s
Rapid Ecoregional Assessments
(REAs). When the assessments are
completed, LCC partners may help
federal and state resource managers
step-down REA information into
land use planning and day-to-day
management activities by: 1) serving
regional information to resource
managers and helping them understand
implications and utility of the
information and 2) conducting focused,
finer grained assessments following the
regional assessments.
17) Is there a lead agency for LCCs?
No. LCCs are intended to be self-directed
partnerships. The U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service and Department of
the Interior played key roles in initially
establishing LCCs and continue to
contribute significant capacity for
national coordination at all of the
22 LCCs. DOI agencies serve on
individual LCC steering committees in
equal standing with all other members.
All major federal conservation agencies
are engaged as LCC partners.
18) How do LCCs relate to one another?
The LCC network is composed of
individual LCCs organized, governed
and operated in a consistent manner
that promotes landscape conservation
nationally and internationally.
LCCs are self-directed partnerships.
However, their governance, structure
and operation are consistent so that
they function as seamlessly as possible
to support geographically defined
landscapes.
It is largely the responsibility of
the LCC staff in each region, in
consultation with the steering
committees (see next question), to
ensure coordination of LCCs that share
mutual interests and/or boundaries.
19) How are LCCs staffed or
coordinated?
Each LCC has a steering committee,
composed of executive-level
and management-level partner
representatives. States, Tribes, and
NGOs with a natural/cultural resource
management focus, all within a given
LCC’s geographic area are invited to
sit on its steering committee.
Steering committees, which are
tailored to the needs of the individual
LCCs, emphasize building on existing
partnerships. Member organizations
are expected to dedicate time and
energy to developing a shared vision
of conservation and coordinating their
otherwise independent actions in the
cooperative pursuit and implementation
of the LCC.
A scientific and technical staff with
an adaptive resource management
focus forms the core of an LCC. The
specifics of how each LCC is staffed are
determined by its steering committee
in consultation with federal agencies
with dedicated funding.
LCC core staff members typically
include landscape and population
modelers, geographers and geographic
information system (GIS) specialists,
terrestrial and aquatic ecologists,
cultural resource specialists,
quantitative fish and wildlife biologists,
hydrologists, outreach specialists and
other technical/decision support staff.
Such staffing promotes collaboration
and communication among LCCs
regarding GIS, spatial data application,
population modeling, statistics,
conservation genetics, landscape
ecology, etc.
20) How are LCCs funded?
The Department of the Interior
is contributing significant funding
through its agencies to support staff,
science and operational capacity. It is
expected that this initial investment will
support the startup of most of the 22
LCCs and begin to demonstrate their
benefits for conservation. Several other
federal, state and private organizations
already have contributed significant
resources toward LCC operations.
21) How are LCC boundaries
determined?
The LCCs’ geographic areas were
developed by a team of U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and U.S. Geological
Survey scientists and experts by
aggregating Bird Conservation
Regions. BCRs are biologically
based units that represent long-standing
partnerships that facilitate
conservation planning and design at
landscape scales. Some BCRs (e.g.,
Hawaii) were not aggregated and
stand-alone as geographic areas. The
geographic areas also incorporate
standard units. For aquatic species
considerations, the Freshwater
Ecoregions of the World was the
standard unit used. That is the same
framework adopted by the National
Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP).
To account for terrestrial species’
needs, Omernick’s Level II and other
existing ecological units were used.
The resulting geographic framework
identified large regions that crossed
state and federal administrative
boundaries. In most geographic areas,
the boundaries of key partnerships
are left intact to preserve existing
conservation and science capacities.
Humboldt Bay National Wildlife
Refuge in northern California is taking
part in a Landscape Conservation
Cooperative-facilitated study of
sea level rise. Photo by Tupper Ansel Blake
For more information about Landscape
Conservation Cooperatives Contact:
your local LCC coordinator
www.doi.gov/lcc/index.cfm
or
Doug Austen
National LCC Coordinator
Tel. 703/358 1953
Email: doug_austen@fws.gov
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Papahanaumokuakea
Marine National Monument
InternationalDate Line Internatio nalDateL ine
Hawaii
Samoa
Guam
Micronesia
Wake Island
Marshall Islands
Howland Island Jarvis Island
21 Johnston Atoll
Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
1.Appalachian
2. California
3. Desert
4. Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers
5. Great Basin
6. Great Northern
7. Great Plains
8. Gulf Coast Prairie
9. Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks
10. North Atlantic
11. North Pacific
12. Peninsular Florida
13. Plains and Prairie Potholes
14. South Atlantic
15. Southern Rockies
16. Upper Midwest and Great Lakes
17.Aleutian and Bering Sea Islands
18.Arctic
19. Northwestern Interior Forest
20.Western Alaska
21. Pacific Islands
22. Caribbean
Unclassified
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U.S. Department of the Interior
Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
Albers Equal Area Conic NAD83
Produced by FWS, IRTM, Denver, CO
Map Date: 12142011
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Puerto Rico
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February 2012