Landscapes

Buying land isn’t enough. Building parks won’t get it done. Restoring forests and wetlands by themselves is not an answer. Successful conservation requires a comprehensive, regional approach.

Landscape conservation means looking beyond property boundaries and political jurisdictions. A holistic perspective is vital for managing watersheds and habitats and addressing long-term issues such as climate change. With funding scarce, it’s also crucial to build partnerships that can set mutual priorities, share resources and collaborate effectively. As the population grows and development expands, conservation needs to help shape – and not simply react to – decisions about land use and urban infrastructure.

This is especially true for complex geographies like the 13-state Northeast megaregion. This densely developed area – stretching from Maine to West Virginia – is now home to about 72 million people. Its cities, suburbs and rural areas are expected to add an additional 15 million people by the year 2040. Where these people are housed, and how their transportation and energy needs are met, will dictate whether the region’s wildlife, drinking water and other resources, farms and forests, and outdoor recreational opportunities are truly lasting.

Landscape conservation initiatives can bring together the diverse interests critical for conservation success in the Northeast and elsewhere. These publicly or privately led efforts, which range from thousands to millions of acres, help focus partners on their shared interest in protecting landscapes and landscape processes. Such collaboration can enable the conservation community to align protection and management of individual properties while providing a platform for engaging non-traditional partners in their work.

To understand the promise and potential of landscape conservation, Regional Plan Association and America 2050, RPA’s national-planning program, have conducted an in-depth analysis of landscape conservation in the Northeast megaregion, inventorying and characterizing existing landscape conservation initiatives and assessing how their diverse efforts relate to issues such as protecting habitats and water resources; assuring recreational opportunities; and managing agriculture and forestry resources.

This report offers a summary of the work landscape conservation initiatives are doing in the Northeast megaregion. Specific examples on how landscape practitioners are carrying out their work are highlighted throughout the document. To our knowledge, this inventory represents the first time that such a comprehensive assessment has been conducted.

The survey was used to identify the major challenges facing landscape conservation, including urban growth and land-use change, investments in transportation, water and energy infrastructure, climate change and limited funding for conservation and management. A build-out model of the 13 states in the region was created as a means of assessing where land-use change – by far the most critical issue facing these initiatives – will likely occur. Maps and analyses of infrastructure investments, energy resources and climate change similarly help paint a mega-regional-scale picture of challenges and opportunities.

Our goal in presenting this information is to further the practice of landscape scale conservation. There is little published information on the science and management of landscapes. Nor is there an overall strategy for coordination and innovation. This report is aimed at the land conservation community and in particular the growing network of those professionals engaged in landscape conservation practice. It is intended to generate discussion on how to better support these largely local efforts, increase their capacity, and leverage their whole system perspective to help shape federal and state policies.

In particular, that conversation should start by considering how to improve the practice of landscape conservation by:

• Addressing issues related to governance, such as the appropriate role of landscape assessment and management plans and building effective strategies for collaborating with partners, especially non-traditional stakeholders;
• Ensuring adequate funding and making the most efficient use of the money that is available. This includes understanding how landscape initiatives can access or benefit from investments in transportation, water, and energy and identifying the opportunities and barriers to sharing services and management responsibilities; and
• Developing the right set of tools, from better communications and marketing to quantifying ecosystem services to implementing regional land-use plans.

For additional information on the America 2050 project, visit the archived America 2050 website.