This report represents a synthesis of 40 existing plans and strategies from our partnerorganizations and others, input from the greater U.S. Caribbean conservation community, andsynthesis by the Caribbean Landscape Conservation Cooperative (CLCC) Science Plan AdvisoryTeam. The goals of the Science Strategy: Mission Alignment are to (1) identify sharedconservation objectives and (2) serve as a foundation for a broad science strategy which willguide collaborative actions for natural and cultural resource conservation in light of globalchange. As an outcome of the synthesis process leading to this report, the CLCC SteeringCommittee has agreed on five priorities that we consider are of the greatest shared conservationimportance and toward which the CLCC can work collaboratively over the next five years.Shared Conservation Priorities: Enhance management, planning, and assessment toward natural resource conservation,sustainable land use and development, historic and cultural resource use and preservation,and climate adaptation for both natural resources and human communities. Support protected areas and especially protected area networks to ensure connectivity,improved management, and identify a suite of key species in priority ecosystems asindicators of natural and anthropogenic impacts and stressors such as climate change andland uses. Develop and support monitoring and research programs to provide information oncultural and natural resources, ecosystem function, and the impacts of climate and nonclimate-relatedstressors. Increase public awareness about the relationship between people and natural and culturalresources with emphasis on their conservation and economic importance; and theiradaptation to climate change. Make data, information, and best conservation practices readily accessible and usable bymanagers and decision-makers.The CLCC has also identified specific conservation objectives associated with each of thesepriorities. These objectives can be used to identify and align conservation actions, projects,educational and research needs, new knowledge development, and individual strategies andactions with the shared objectives of the CLCC partners. In addition to stating the priorities andhierarchically nested objectives, the report provides suggestions for implementation strategies, aswell as next steps and approaches to (a) prioritize specific resources for conservation and (b)develop a spatially-explicit conservation design for these resources.
