The Washington Connected Landscapes Project is a highly leveraged effort to provide scientific analyses and tools necessary to conserve wildlife habitat connectivity. In support of the project, we 1) developed tools necessary to reliably identify and prioritize areas important for connectivity conservation and restoration under current conditions and for allowing species range shifts under climate change; 2) tested and refined these tools by applying them in a Great Northern LCC (GNLCC)-funded effort to identify essential habitats and linkages for the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion where the WHCWG is currently engaged (connectivity and climate tools) and across Washington State (climate tools); and 3) released these tools as freely available GIS toolboxes. Two papers were published on novel methods developed for this project, two reports were released on applying the tools, and the project researchers are writing follow-up papers building on the methods.
