What is conservation action?

Conservation action is what happens when the "rubber meets the road."

Conservation action encompasses a broad scope of activities undertaken by a wide range of people, organizations, agencies, and governments, working across multiple political and geographic boundaries, to produce tangible results on the ground.

The Wildlands Project works to facilitate these activities using our Wildlands Network Conservation Plans, which provide detailed recommendations on how to take the lessons of conservation science and turn them into successful efforts by people living and working in local communities.

These efforts range from simple, individual actions to collaborative, complex campaigns. But regardless of their size or complexity, all conservation actions are part of an overarching network of activity that results in conservation plan implementation.

Wildlands Project co-founder and conservation biologist Michael Soulé describes this work as "networks of people protecting networks of land." Chances are that you, as a visitor to this website, are a vital member of this network of concerned citizens.

A few examples of conservation action include:

• writing letters to the editor advocating habitat protection
• donating money to conservation efforts
• voluntarily placing conservation easements on private land
• working to create new protected areas, or expand existing ones
• educating the public
• speaking out at public meetings
• commenting on proposed developments affecting wildlife
• influencing land management agencies to better accommodate the needs of plants and animals, including endangered species
• forming coalitions of concerned people to protect special places

Photo © Susan C. Morse

Conservation Action "Success Stories

Progress toward implementing Wildlands Network Conservation Plans happens every single day, in many different ways. Keeping track of these successful conservation stories gives us all a chance to celebrate the work of protecting nature. Below you'll find some examples of conservation action projects currently underway through the Wildlands Project's Southwest Field Office.

Jaguar Protection and Recovery

The Wildlands Project has joined with the Mexican conservation group Naturalia and the U.S.-based Northern Jaguar Project in a five-year effort to protect the northernmost breeding grounds for the endangered jaguar in Sonora, Mexico.

Through land purchases, public education, tracking and monitoring, and advocating for wildlife-friendly border infrastructure, this multi-national conservation effort will help ensure that thousands of acres of prime jaguar habitat remain wild, and that the U.S.-Mexico border will remain permeable for wildlife.

Our long-term vision for this project is that our efforts will not only allow the jaguar to thrive in Mexico, but will also allow this magnificent cat to once again return home to its former range in the Sky Islands region of Arizona and New Mexico.

Wildlife-Friendly Highway Crossing Structures

Highways have traditionally been built without any consideration for their impact on wildlife. But roads of all kinds can create a treacherous, deadly barrier for animals traveling from place to place. Automobile collisions due to hitting or avoiding wildlife on highways are a growing problem, causing billions of dollars in property damage and resulting in unnecessary injuries and death for both animals and people.

To help make roads more friendly to wildlife in Arizona, the Wildlands Project, working with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Department, and the U.S. Forest Service, organized the state's first-ever "Missing Linkages" workshop in 2004.

This workshop resulted in the mapping and prioritizing of 80 key wildlife linkages throughout Arizona. The linkage map is being used as a planning tool for placement of wildlife crossing structures on highways, many of which pose major threats to habitat connectivity within the Sky Islands Wildlands Network.

In New Mexico, the Wildlands Project is a founding member of the Tijeras Canyon Safe Passage Coalition, a group of local citizens, conservationists, scientists, and staff from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and the New Mexico Department of Transportation working to create wildlife-friendly crossing structures over Interstate 40 at Tijeras Canyon, just east of Albuquerque. Tijeras Canyon connects two mountain ranges-the Sandias and the Manzanos-and is considered home for many species including cougar, black bear, and bighorn sheep. Working together, we are developing new ways to make I-40 safer for wildlife.

Cross-Border Wildlife Linkage Protection

In response to the rapid construction of border security infrastructure along the U.S.-Mexico border in southern Arizona, much of which will permanently block key cross-border wildlife linkages used by jaguars, ocelots, pronghorn and other endangered species, the Wildlands Project hosted a first-of-its-kind Border Ecological Symposium in March, 2005 to assemble available science on cross-border wildlife movement.

The Symposium brought a wide range of stakeholders to the table, including agency staff, elected officials, conservation organizations, and wildlife biologists. The symposium proceedings will result in scientific documents, guidelines, and new research initiatives that will inform future border security construction projects regarding the need for wildlife linkage protection along this stretch of border-declared by the Wildlands Project to be one of the five most endangered linkages along the Spine of the Continent MegaLinkage.

Private Lands Conservation

Protecting key wildlife linkage areas-vast swaths of public and private land that connect core wild areas-is critical to the long-term survival of many species. Because much of this land is in private hands, a major goal of the Wildlands Project is to educate private landowners on the many public and private conservation incentive programs available to them.

To advance this goal, the Wildlands Project recently held a first-of-its-kind Private Lands Conservation Workshop, which brought landowners together with officials from the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Arizona Association of Conservation Districts, and several regional land trusts for informal presentations on available funding for private lands conservation. The event resulted in several agency and land trust contacts with prospective conservation easement customers. A similar workshop will be held in 2005.

In conjunction with this event, the Wildlands Project published a 24-page "Conservation Opportunities and Incentives for Private Land Owners" booklet describing 27 separate funding opportunities for private lands conservation. The booklet was distributed to all in attendance at the workshop and also mailed to 200 additional private landowners in the region. The booklet has been requested for use by several agencies and conservation groups, and will be updated annually.

Public Lands Protection

The Wildlands Project is working with a wide range of conservation groups and other partners to develop communications and management approaches that promote increased protections for wildlife linkages on public lands in the Sky Islands region in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico. The Wildlands Project is also working to influence agency policies that include ecological protections for public lands elsewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border in southern Arizona through focus on wildlife-friendly security infrastructure.

Public and Constituency Outreach

An important aspect of successful Wildlands Network implementation is to introduce the Wildlands Project's "big picture" approach to conservation to individuals and groups and inspire them to take action in their local community. We regularly make presentations to a wide range of audiences, including students of all ages, conservation groups, land trusts, and government agencies, the press, and the general public.

Informing State Conservation Policy

The Wildlands Project is working with state Game and Fish personnel to draft federally required Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy documents for both Arizona and New Mexico. The completed strategy documents will qualify the states for new federal funding for habitat and wildlife protection projects. The Wildlands Project is providing species lists and other protection and restoration recommendations from both the New Mexico Highlands Wildlands Network and Sky Islands Wildlands Network conservation plans and will take part in working groups authorized to draft the final conservation strategies.