Strategic Conservation Planning Case Studies
California FarmLink: Preserving farmland through thoughtful succession planning
California FarmLink is a resource hub and service provider that helps farmers learn and improve business and financial management skills, find land, secure land tenure, and obtain financing. This organization works to link independent, underserved farmers and ranchers to the working agricultural lands and financing they need for a sustainable future.
Collaboration: Land Trusts Working Together to Strengthen Coastal Resilience in Maine
By maintaining and sharing resources and continuing to convene and build this network of practitioners, MCHT aims to continue to support ongoing state-wide and region-specific conservation action planning dialogs.
Corridors and Climate: Planning for Regional Species Flow – Lakes Region Climate-Inclusive Conservation Plan Looks Beyond Borders
Conservation organizations in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire have been collaborating since 2010 to develop and implement a regional strategic conservation plan to address regional conservation opportunities and threats. This cutting-edge assessment and planning initiative identified a connected network of climate-resilient sites with the characteristics needed to ensure plant and animal species can persist as the climate changes. By incorporating this and other data, including habitat and species movements identified in New Hampshire’s Wildlife Action Plan, these organizations are now able to better identify and protect resilient sites in the Lakes Region that will support plant and animal adaptation as the climate changes in New Hampshire.
Go Zero – The Conservation Fund’s Reforestation Program
The Conservation Fund’s forest carbon offset projects are developed with careful consideration of climate and community benefits. The Fund’s carbon program supports both conservation-based forest management and forest restoration projects in some of America’s favorite places.
Jefferson Land Trust’s Conservation Plan and Forward-Facing Forestry
After five years of work, Jefferson Land Trust’s Conservation Plan, a long-range, hundred-year vision of county growth and resource stewardship, was completed in 2010. JLT’s projects highlight how strategic planning can effectively align complementary management objectives such as stewarding sustainable working lands, conserving habitat, providing recreation, and enhancing overall resilience of ecosystems.
Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation: Resiliency Planning
The Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation (LPBF) works to restore and preserve natural resources within the watershed. Restoration projects combined with community education and outreach to improve land management practices have yielded measurable water quality improvements. By increasing protection of natural features such as marshes, barrier islands, and ridges, conservation efforts help protect surrounding communities – both ecological and socio-economic – from the impacts of increasingly stronger hurricanes and sea level rise.
Nebraska Land Trust – Crafting Flexible Easements to Respond to Change
At Nebraska Land Trust flexible easements further long-term management objectives. As climate conditions present new management threats, it is important that conservation easements allow for the flexibility to mitigate and adapt to these impacts.
North Florida Land Trust – Strategic Conservation Mapping
The North Florida Land Trust has used 26 natural resource criteria to map and prioritize strategic conservation objectives in a seven-county region. The resulting North Florida Conservation Priorities map offers a quantitative guide of conservation values, informing acquisition and management priorities in this area.
North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership – using geospatial tools to build resilience
The North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership is using geospatial tools to identify conservation priorities to support resiliency in the face of climate change.
Pacific Forest Trust: Carbon Projects to Mitigate Climate Change
The Pacific Forest Trust is a pioneer of approaches and standards used to create forest climate policies including carbon emissions reductions or offset projects which harness and protect the natural ability of forests to accumulate and hold carbon, acting as carbon “sinks” and providing essential climate benefits.
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