Landscape Conservation Cooperatives are public-private partnerships composed of federal, state, and local governments, Tribes and First Nations, non-governmental organizations, universities, interested public and private organizations, international jurisdictions, and others working together to address landscape and seascape scale conservation issues. However, numerous approaches to landscape conservation design (LCD) exist and the nuances among these efforts makes integration of LCD with other planning efforts and products, both within and across Landscape Conservation Cooperative boundaries, a challenge. We reviewed and synthesized information on LCD projects in the eastern United States to better understand challenges for LCD and propose solutions. We found that LCD projects have multiple attributes that span ecological, spatial, temporal, and jurisdictional scales. We illustrate how LCD projects can be re-framed from conservation defined by spatial or ecological scales only (e.g., specific species and ecosystems), to an approach defined by broad conservation goals and common actions that protect, restore, and manage species and ecosystems. Focusing on spatial or ecological scales resulted in little connectivity among adjacent projects and no connectivity among non-adjacent projects when too few species or ecosystems were the target of more than one LCD project. We propose a scale dynamics approach defined by conservation goals to protect, restore, and manage species and ecosystems. We linked conservation goals to policy and management actions, which we subsequently linked to spatial and ecological scales. In this way, the scale dynamics approach provides a trans-project basis for integration across multiple LCD projects. We suggest LCD projects should identify scales and levels of the LCD and potential scale challenges and address them a priori by identifying what conservation actions to take (Goals), how to conduct those actions (Implementation), and where to take those actions (Spatial) to benefit species and ecosystems (Ecological). Then, identify who (Jurisdiction) will take those actions and when (Threats) those actions should be taken. Second, strive for a one-to-one correspondence of action-specific objectives and map outputs. This means that every objective to protect, manage, or restore has an objective-specific map and thereby helps address the challenge of mismatch. Third, define separate and non-overlapping objectives so each objective is complete, concise, sensitive to the conservation actions under consideration, and independent of other objectives.
