Case Study: Practitioners’ Network for Large Landscape Conservation

Presented by Shawn Johnson, Center for Natural Resources & Environmental Policy, The University of Montana

The Practitioners’ Network for Large Landscape Conservation was launched in May 2011 as an alliance of individuals and organizations engaged in leading, managing, researching, advocating, funding, educating, or setting policy to advance large landscape conservation initiatives.  This case study will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the Network’s structure, work plan, accomplishments, and lessons learned to date.  It will also explore the Network’s niche role in promoting and advancing large landscape conservation.

Build capacity for large landscape conservation at various scales and across sectors.

• Build awareness and understanding of the diversity of approaches to catalyze, enable, and sustain large landscape conservation initiatives.
• Help conservation initiatives develop skills, acquire tools, share best practices, create opportunities for shared funding, build necessary staffing, and share scientific and other expertise.
• Help develop key measures of success for conservation initiatives, and establish methods to monitor.
• Document and evaluate what is/is not working.

Link existing and emerging large landscape conservation initiatives.

• Share experiences and learn from one another.
• Examine models for collaboration and innovative governance arrangements
• Strengthen linkages among initiatives to provide the building blocks for coordination and integration of these separate conservation efforts.
• Interact with other practitioners, landowners, community leaders, government agencies, universities, foundations, and non-governmental organizations.

Promote and support large landscape conservation initiatives.

• Promote innovation by linking science, practice, funding, and policy.
• Advocate for funding and support at the international, national, and regional level.
• Set goals to promote the funding, management, and planning of large landscape conservation initiatives as contrasted to the pursuit of scattered, unconnected conservation efforts (“random acts of conservation”).
• Harness private market resources under the umbrella of large landscapes; link them to rural economic development.
• Provide conservation initiative leaders with the skills and tools needed to convene diverse people across political and jurisdictional boundaries, mobilize and engage private landowners and the business community, formulate and assess future scenarios and goals, integrate best available ecological, economic and social science, generate sustained funding, identify desired conservation outcomes, and monitor and evaluate progress.

View Shawn's powerpoint slides HERE