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.
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.
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.
Planning for Big, Connected Conservation – Kentucky Natural Lands Trust
Kentucky Natural Lands Trust (KNLT) is working to protect, connect, and restore wildlands, large forest tracts, and migratory corridors.
Planning for Marsh Migration at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge
Blackwater 2100 is a collaborative strategic conservation plan that aims to address salt marsh loss and migration in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay.
Scenic Hudson: Projecting and Buffering Against Sea Level Rise Impacts
In New York, Scenic Hudson is conserving land in 82 communities in ten counties along the Hudson River to buffer against future sea level rise impacts. By targeting key properties for acquisition efforts, this land trust is working to ensure that natural processes such as marsh migration can continue to provide valuable ecological services as well as mitigate the effects of rising waters throughout the estuary.
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