Crown of the Continent Landscape Conservation Design
Dates
Publication Date
2021-07
Citation
Finn, S., N. Poremba, P. Matson, M. McFadzen, A. Douglas, M. Heller. 2021. Crown of the Continent Landscape Conservation Design Phase 1 Technical Report. Crown Managers Partnership. 24 July 2021.
Summary
The Crown Managers Partnership (CMP) is coordinating the Crown of the Continent Landscape Conservation Design (LCD) process to help land managers collectively achieve landscape-scale ecological objectives while working within agency and organizational jurisdictions and mandates. By bringing stakeholders together, the LCD provides the opportunity for land managers to prioritize and coordinate actions on the ground. Representing 42 stakeholder entities across 31,000 sq km (50,500 mi2) in Montana, Alberta, and British Columbia, we are developing spatial designs for 15 priority landscape features. Spatial design integrates stakeholder and subject matter expert knowledge and objectives of resource management plans with broad data sets [...]
Summary
The Crown Managers Partnership (CMP) is coordinating the Crown of the Continent Landscape Conservation Design (LCD) process to help land managers collectively achieve landscape-scale ecological objectives while working within agency and organizational jurisdictions and mandates. By bringing stakeholders together, the LCD provides the opportunity for land managers to prioritize and coordinate actions on the ground.
Representing 42 stakeholder entities across 31,000 sq km (50,500 mi2) in Montana, Alberta, and British Columbia, we are developing spatial designs for 15 priority landscape features. Spatial design integrates stakeholder and subject matter expert knowledge and objectives of resource management plans with broad data sets to generate spatial optimization models and maps.
Ultimately, the spatial designs will be supported with priority strategies that link local and agency actions and resources through a road map. The road map will describe how we can achieve expressed desired conditions, and ultimately, our vision for the Crown: Ensuring a resilient, connected landscape that supports healthy ecosystems and human communities.
This report summarizes the progress made by the Analysis Team on the spatial design step of the LCD Phase One. It describes a pilot effort of the spatial design process for 13 of the 15 priority ecological features (Finn et al. 2020) including the goals of optimization modeling, the data resources and scoring method used for model building, the steps for modeling each landscape feature, and conclusions and lessons learned from the process. The Phase One pilot was intended to test the process, software, data inputs, manipulations and management, and our ability to generate useful outputs. Phase One process did not generate meaningful ecological models, thus all optimization outputs (maps) displayed below include the caveat: “Draft: Please do not cite or distribute”. We feel this test of the process was successful and Phase Two objectives include co-production of relevant optimization models grounded in vetted data and expert knowledge. This report is part of the LCD project’s ongoing effort to be transparent and inclusive. Questions and comments may be directed at the lead author or by participating in the LCD Leadership Team or Technical Team.
