Build back a better National Landscape Conservation Framework

Author(s): Mankowski, John; Wathen, Greg; Poe, Aaron; Mordecai, Rua; Wearn, Anna | Abstract: The US Department of the Interior’s (DOI’s) Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) Network served as a national conservation framework from 2010–2017. The LCC program created 22 regional self-directed partnerships covering the entire country, each one designed to understand the threats and develop collaborative strategies to conserve natural and cultural resources important to the partners operating within their geographic scope. The establishment of the LCC program was not without some controversy, but a 2015 congressionally mandated independent review of its scientific merits reached a positive conclusion. Neverthless, funding for LCCs was ended in 2017 and most were disbanded. This paper explains the need to increase US federal support for landscape-scale, collaborative conservation, and build back a better, more durable network to meet this century’s conservation challenges.