USFWS - Landscape Conservation Cooperatives

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) are public-private partnerships composed of states, tribes, federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities, international jurisdictions, and others working together to address landscape and seascape scale conservation issues. LCCs inform resource management decisions to address broad-scale stressors-including habitat fragmentation, genetic isolation, spread of invasive species, and water scarcity-all of which are magnified by a rapidly changing climate. This data is for planning purposes only. LCCs are applied conservation science partnerships with two main functions. The first is to promote collaboration among their members in defining shared conservation goals. With these goals in mind, partners can identify where and how they will take action, within their own authorities and organizational priorities, to best contribute to the larger conservation effort. The second function of LCCs is to provide the science and technical expertise needed to address the shared priorities and support conservation planning at landscape scales beyond the scope and authority of any one organization. The organizational model of the LCC Network was intentionally structured to operate as a coordinated network of regionally-focused, self-directed partnerships. Self-direction and regional focus are important for individual LCCs to enable latitude for engaging local stakeholders on relevant high-priority issues within their geographies. Network coordination is important for LCCs to function as a larger collective to address issues at the appropriate ecological scale, to share best practices, to leverage resources, and to find economies of scale. For further information go to http://lccnetwork.org. Collectively, LCCs comprise a seamless international network supporting landscapes and seascapes capable of sustaining abundant, diverse, and healthy populations of fish, wildlife, and plants. They provide a strong link between science and conservation delivery without duplicating existing partnerships or creating burdensome and unnecessary bureaucracy. Science-based recommendations and decision support tools produced by LCCs are readily transferable to field offices that implement on-the-ground actions. Rather than create a new conservation infrastructure from the ground up, LCCs build upon explicit biological management priorities and objectives, science available from existing partnerships (such as fish habitat partnerships, migratory bird joint ventures and flyway councils), as well as species- and geographic-based partnerships. LCCs support adaptive resource management by evaluating implementation of conservation strategies, maintaining and sharing information and data, and improving products as new information becomes available. Shared data platforms serve multiple purposes, including the collaborative development of population or habitat models under alternative climate scenarios to inform spatially explicit decision support for all partners. In the face of accelerated climate change and other 21st-century conservation challenges, LCCs regularly assess scientific information and effectiveness of conservation actions and support necessary adjustments as new information becomes available. This iterative process of information sharing helps scientists and resource managers deal with uncertainties on the landscape and provides tools to evaluate the implications of management alternatives to determine the most effective conservation actions to support shared priorities.