Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell highlighted landscape-scale conservation in a recent speech to the National Press Club. The Secretary also issued a Secretarial Order that identifies “the use of a landscape-scale approach to identify and facilitate investment in key conservation priorities in a region;” as part of an integrated strategy to improve mitigation policies and practices of the Department of the Interior. The Secretarial Order sets the expectation that “…the Department seeks to avoid potential environmental impacts from projects through steps such as advanced landscape-level planning that identified areas suitable for development because of low or relatively low natural and cultural resource conflicts.” The Order also anticipates a potential role for partnerships, such as Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, in improving mitigation practices.
The South Atlantic LCC has also identified “Guiding infrastructure development (highways, wind, urban growth, etc)” as a potential use for the Blueprint. This is one of many opportunities that your Cooperative will be considering as we complete version 1.0 of the Blueprint.
Hello Ken.
Thanks for you post re collaborative landscape planning. This is what FWS, NRCS, FDEP, FWC, SRWMD, and the 4 Big Bend Coast County leaders are working with us on for the tidewater basins between the St Marks NWR and Lower Suwannee NWR. And the entire Suwannee River watershed as defined in the USFWS Suwannee R. WRIA launched this spring. The community tie into this long ranch planning strategy fits the local economies dependent upon sustainable forestry, fishing and ecotourism. Their Nature Coast name really fits as does GoM RESTORE goals.
Regards
GW
Thanks George. This sounds like a great example. Is there a geo-spatial planning effort that we could look at for this area?
Yes – will send that. It roughly follows the watersheds of the ongoing FWS Suwannee River WRIA and the Srwmd boundaries. On the coast it generally is the areas of the 4 counties between the SMNWR and the LSNWR.