A Wildlands Project-sponsored Network Implementation Workshop earlier this year has laid the groundwork for a tri-national campaign to expand, protect and connect critical wildlife habitat along the Spine of the Continent - from the wilds of Alaska and Western Canada south through the Rocky Mountains and associated ranges to the northernmost breeding grounds of the jaguar in Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental.

This campaign is the next logical step in the Wildlands Project's vision to create a system of connected and protected wildlands networks essential to the long-term survival of both wildlife and people. By protecting critical wild habitats and the wildlife linkages between them, the campaign hopes to assure a healthy future for our homeland, our communities, and for the rich diversity of native species that depends upon our stewardship.

A campaign to protect the Spine of the Continent comes at a time when threats to landscape connectivity from energy development, highway fragmentation, and subdivisions require immediate conservation action. Only through on-the-ground implementation can our vision for a healthy ecological future become reality. And only through a national campaign designed to reconnect people to wild nature can implementation occur on a meaningful scale. Ultimately, on-the-ground conservation success along the Spine of the Continent will truly require "networks of people protecting networks of land."

Several operational or nearly-completed Wildlands Network Conservation Plans are now in place along the Spine of the Continent "MegaLinkage," the result of a 10-year investment of resources, expertise, and collaborative planning by the Wildlands Project and numerous wildlands network partners. This unprecedented, large-landscape-scale planning effort has set the stage for the next decade of work--translating conservation science into effective conservation action that will ensure permanent, on-the-ground protection for a system of connected wildlands along the Spine of the Continent. This new focus on conservation action will draw on the significant experience accumulated to date by the Wildlands Project and its partners in the area of wildlands network implementation.

A consensus now exists among the many organizations supporting a Spine of the Continent campaign: that the Wildlands Project is a logical convener and organizer of such an effort, based on its long-held vision of continental-scale conservation; its experience in facilitation and execution of successful, on-the-ground conservation actions in the Southwestern U.S.; and its refinement of collaborative approaches to conservation action involving conservationists, state and federal agencies, land trusts, scientists, elected officials, and private landowners. "It's exciting to see the new conservation energy that this campaign is already bringing to the wildlands network community, and we hope we can spread that energy to others through this effort," says Kim Vacariu, Director of Wildlands Project's Southwest Field office in Tucson.

An initial steering group made up of key organizations with active, dedicated, on-the-ground wildlands network implementation programs in the Spine of the Continent region was assembled in the summer of 2005. The group's next step is to develop a strategic plan for the campaign, facilitated by the Wildlands Project, which will move the campaign forward. Stay tuned for updates on this exciting project in 2006.