Science delivery heats up as summer approaches

With more and more resources designed to meet the needs of conservation professionals becoming available, staff and partners from the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative are LCCs are doing the legwork to transfer that science to partners who can use it to address a range of large-scale conservation priorities. A roundup of science delivery in May:

Prioritizing places to support key habitats and species

During the last week of May, North Atlantic LCC Coordinator Andrew Milliken traveled to the Mid Atlantic to meet with state, federal, and foundation partners in Richmond, Virginia, Washington, D.C, and Annapolis, Maryland.

On May 24th, Milliken met with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Land Acquisition Project Team to help them incorporate regional information and tools from the North Atlantic and Appalachian LCCs to prioritize parcels for their regional value for species and habitats into their efforts protect key parcels of land throughout that state.

On May 25th, Milliken met with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which is exploring the use of LCC tools and conservation designs to inform business plans and grant proposal reviews in its protection and restoration efforts across the Northeast region, and beyond.  

Both the North Atlantic and Appalachian LCCs are working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Chesapeake Bay Program to support efforts to conserve habitats while reducing nutrient inputs and increase the health of the Chesapeake Bay estuary, and on May 26th, Milliken met with members of the Bay Program’s  Scientific and Technical Analysis and Reporting Team to review available information, tools, and conservation designs to support this effort.

Earlier in May, Science Delivery Coordinator Steve Fuller met with the Bay Program’s Habitat Goal Implementation Team to review options for linking habitat work to State Wildlife Action Plans and developing watershed-wide conservation designs.

Providing guidance for land trusts on applying climate data

North Atlantic LCC GIS Analyst Renee Farnsworth and Science Delivery Coordinator Steve Fuller provided information and support for workshops held on May 23rd at the Midcoast Conservancy Offices in Wiscasset, Maine, and on May 24th at the Colby-Sawyer College in New London, N.H., to provide guidance for land trusts on incorporating climate-change resilience into land-protection strategies.

Hosted by the Open Space Institute, the trainings were were designed to complement the forthcoming resource, “Conserving Nature in a Changing Climate: A Guide for Land Trusts in the Northeast,” developed with support from the North Atlantic LCC.

At the New Hampshire workshop, Farnsworth and Fuller provided an introduction to the LCC, and hands-on training on a selection of spatial datasets, including exercises on how to use the LCC’s Conservation Planning Atlas on Data Basin to better understand the datasets and tools.

The climate guide and related resources will be available in mid-July.

Connecting new partners to Connect the Connecticut

North Atlantic LCC Science Coordinator Scott Schwenk met with the Southwest Regional Planning Commission's Natural Resource Advisory Committee in Keene, N.H., to provide an overview of the datasets and tools available through Connect the Connecticut to inform decisions at multiple scales throughout the watershed region. Attendees included representatives from local conservation commissions and the Monadnock Conservancy.