Read the statement from Gary Tabor, president of the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, on the Biden administration’s “Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful" report, which recommends a national, 10-year, locally led campaign to restore the nation’s lands and waters.
Akash Patil of India spoke of his first encounter with a leopard and his subsequent commitment to a career in conservation. Nayla Azmi told a story of growing up in an Indonesian palm oil plantation and her journey to become an orangutan protector. Sarah Kulis, a recent graduate from West Virginia University, and legally blind, encouraged other aspiring conservationists with disabilities to persevere. These were three of the young storytellers who shared their experiences in conservation at the Center's workshop at the recent IUCN Global Youth Summit.
Recently, the United Nations General Assembly adopted an unprecedented resolution recognizing the critical importance of ecological connectivity worldwide. The resolution, sponsored by Kyrgyzstan and signed by 60 other countries, encourages all 193 country members to enhance habitat and species connectivity to preserve ecosystems and wildlife corridors that share borders between countries.
On this Earth Day 2021, the Center is proud to announce release of the official Spanish translation of the IUCN ‘Guidelines for Conserving Connectivity through Ecological Networks and Corridors.’ As the result of contributions from more than 100 experts in 30 countries serving as volunteer members of the IUCN WCPA Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group (CCSG), these groundbreaking Guidelines are already helping to clarify and standardize approaches worldwide for conserving ecological connectivity.
The Center is increasingly engaging with partners across Central Asia to build capacity, promote research, and implement connectivity conservation efforts in the countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. We are proud to be part of growing collaboration across this globally important biodiversity hotspot that has, among other progress, yielded important scientific evidence about the presence of an endangered and charismatic species—the Persian leopard—in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.
Road ecologist Elizabeth Fairbank looks out across a seemingly endless expanse of the Mojave Desert in southern Nevada. The roadside location feels remote on this quiet February morning, but a bird’s eye view would reveal a slightly different story: the desert is crisscrossed with a web of roads and highways that did not exist a few decades ago. Fairbank is on a site visit to the heart of Desert Tortoise habitat, hoping to help save the species before it’s too late.
Evidence of a changing climate can be seen in every community and every landscape. Across the globe, communities are experiencing more frequent and extreme weather events that include drought, intense wildfire seasons, air pollution, and flooding. Alarmingly, it has been estimated that even if worldwide human emissions were to halt overnight, the earth would still be feeling the effects of climate change for years to come. For this reason, communities from rural towns to major cities are proactively preparing for the challenges ahead.
Wildlife Connect is an exciting new initiative of WWF International, and the Center for Large Landscape Conservation is advising on its development. The partnership aims to create ecologically connected and thus climate-resilient landscapes throughout WWF’s conservation work with a focus on three important and vulnerable landscapes on three continents.
The Center for Large Landscape Conservation is looking for a new team member to fill the position of Development Manager. This role is responsible for coordination and execution of efforts to achieve the fundraising goals of the Center.
The virtual IUCN "One Nature, One Future" Global Youth Summit takes place April 5-16, 2021, and the Center for Large Landscape Conservation will host two sessions for young conservationists. The Summit is designed to strengthen connections between young leaders globally and add momentum to growing youth movements for nature and climate. Since the two-week event will be entirely virtual, and entirely free, there’s no reason not to register!