Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) of the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) have developed a national geographic framework for implementing strategic habitat conservation at landscape scales. Strategic habitat conservation (SHC) requires developing critical steps in dealing with a range of landscape-scale resource threats to priority species populations such as development, invasive species, wildfire, and water scarcity--all magnified by accelerating climate change. The framework will provide a platform upon which the USFWS can work with partners to connect project- and site-specific efforts to larger biological goals and outcomes across the continent.

Secretarial Order 3289, issued by DOI Secretary Ken Salazar in September 2009 as part of a coordinated climate change strategy , called for establishing the regional Climate Science Centers (CSCs) or Hubs and a network of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) to develop strategies for managing climate change and other impacts on natural resources. The national geographic framework will be used as a base geography to locate the first generation of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) and in planning a second generation of LCCs during the FY 2011 budget formulation process. Twenty-one LCCs are planned through FY 2012.

LCCs are management-science partnerships that inform integrated resource management actions addressing climate change, land use change, and other stressors within and across landscapes. These are unprecedented challenges facing the conservation community, and the science must adapt to respond. LCCs will link science and conservation delivery and are fundamental units of planning and science capacity in carrying out the functional elements of SHC. These challenges require conservation to operate at landscape scales, well beyond traditional jurisdictional boundaries.

LCCs are true cooperatives, formed and directed by land, water, wildlife and cultural resource managers and interested public and private organizations. Federal, state, tribal, local government and non-governmental management organizations are all invited as partners in their development. These groups will collaboratively develop science-based recommendations, strategies, and decision support tools for USFWS field offices to implement on-the-ground conservation. By functioning as network of interdependent units rather than independent entities, LCC partnerships can accomplish a conservation mission no single agency or organization can accomplish. Success will mean all partners working together to support landscapes capable of sustaining abundant, diverse and healthy populations of fish, wildlife and plants.

Guided by DOI's newly created Energy and Climate Change Council (formerly Climate Change Response Council), LCCs will provide new science capacity for USFWS and partners and will complement the USGS Climate Science Centers from a USFWS mission and partner-based perspective. Together, the CSCs and LCCs will assess impacts of climate change and identify strategies to ensure that resources across landscapes are resilient. USFWS is a primary lead on LCCs and has invested the most resources into establishing and staffing them.

What are LCCs? What does a LCC look like? What can LCCs do (and not do)? What can a LCC produce? How will LCCs work? These questions are addressed in the following link to a USFWS fact sheet:

http://acjv.org/mng_board_12_09/Northeast_LCC_Fact_sheet.pdf

With the onset of climate change the USFWS is leading states and other organizations in taking the first steps toward what could become a radical departure from today's species-recovery model. The USFWS plan is a comprehensive and predictive "adaptation management" plan to help troubled wildlife. Its centerpiece is the creation of eight new regional LCCs, the first of up to 20 nationwide that will enlist multiple partners to deal with global warming's expected effects.

http://georgewright.org/node/360

Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has called for expanded LCCs that can protect critical carbon sinks and wildlife habitats. Salazar said LCCs can serve as both wildlife migration corridors and a major part of a U.S. C02 bio-sequestration strategy. He argues that while preventing deforestation in developing countries is crucial, a need also exists to focus on reforestation within this country. U.S. lands are key sources for biosequestration and geological sequestration of C02.

http://dirt.asla.org/2009/10/28/a-new-response-to-climate-change-landscape-conservation-cooperatives/

> Other LCC Links

A list of actions taken by federal natural resource agencies responding to climate change

http://www.climateconservation.org/images/Fed-Nat-Resources-Agency12-09.pdf

A presentation by USFWS Deputy Director on addressing accelerated climate change; principles and means to meet the challenge

http://www.birdconservationalliance.org/meetings/dan_ashe_bca_presentation_nov09.pdf

An overview of LCCs by USFWS at 75^th North American Wildlife and Natural Resource Conference (incl. definition, function, form) w/ special reference to Arctic and Great Northern LCCs

http://www.fishwildlife.org/pdfs/Bird%20Cmmttee/LCC-Overview_March2010.pdf

SEE THE USFWS PAGE for more information on SHC and LCCs

http://conserveonline.org/workspaces/climateadaptation/documents/doi-u.s.-fish-and-wildlife-service-usfws-or-fws/view.html

> National Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (* established in FY2010; ^ in planning stages)

Appalachian^	Great Plains *?	Plains and Prairie Potholes*	Aleutian and Bering Sea Islands
California *	Gulf Coast Prairie^	South Atlantic *	Arctic*
Desert^	Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks*	Southern Rockies ^	Northwestern Interior Forest
Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers	North Atlantic *	Upper Midwest and Great Lakes^	Western Alaska
Great Basin ^	North Pacific^
Great Northern*	Peninsular Florida^		Pacific Islands *

Twenty-one LCCs are planned through FY 2012, about half of which will be up and running by the end of 2010.

http://www.doi.gov/lcc/index.cfm: for interactive map and link to each LCC with information on participating bureaus, points of contact, resource management challenges and other; also includes brief description of function and services of LCCs

NOTE: LCCs were originally designed, and in practice are forming, to be broader than focusing solely on climate change issues within a region. Each LCC is self-identifying the most important and urgent conservation challenges it faces at the landscape scale.

The eight USFWS regions and information on LCCs within each region:

http://www.fws.gov/pacific/Climatechange/lcc.html, the Pacific Region (Region 1)
http://www.fws.gov/southwest/About%20Us/LCC/index.html, the Southwest Region (2)
http://www.fws.gov/southwest/AboutUs/LCC/index.html, the Southwest Region (2)
http://www.fws.gov/midwest/climate/LCC.cfm, the Midwest Region (Region 3)
http://www.fws.gov/southeast/LCC/, the Southeast Region (Region 4)
http://www.fws.gov/northeast/science/lcc.html, the Northeast region (Region 5)
http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/lcc/, the Mountain-Prairie Region (Region 6)
http://alaska.fws.gov/lcc/index.htm, the Alaska region (Region 7)
http://www.fws.gov/cno/climate.html, the Pacific Southwest region (Region 8), scroll down page to LCC section

News and information pertaining to the five Midwest Region LCCs; incl. LCC definition

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/climate/LCC.cfm

Facts pertaining to the South Atlantic LCC: purpose, the habitat, adaptation benefits, organization and partnerships, capacity, timeline and more

LCCs in the Pacific Southwest Region include the California LCC, Great Basin LCC, North Pacific LCC and Desert LCC.