What is Connectivity? - Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Ecological connectivity is the unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Ecological connectivity is the unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
How can new linear infrastructure—including roads, railways, and power lines—meet human needs while protecting snow leopards, their prey, and the fragile ecosystems they depend on to survive?| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
The recent death of a baby elephant killed by a truck on a Malaysia highway was a sad reminder of the conflict between human development and wildlife survival. To address this problem and prevent future tragedies, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC) has been co-organizing workshops with partners to promote actionable solutions in the 13 countries where Asian elephants still live in the wild.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
The Board of Directors of the Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC) announced today that the organization’s visionary founder, Gary Tabor, will retire from his role as CEO of CLLC.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Turkmenistan’s “Mountain Ecosystems of Koytendag” (MEK) make up one of the most distinctive and richly biodiverse landscapes in Central Asia. However, the area faces mounting threats to its conservation, including agricultural expansion, overgrazing, illegal hunting, and unmanaged tourism. As part of our project 'Connectivity, Capacity, and Cats: Building Resiliency in the Mountain Ecosystems of Koytendag,' funded by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), national and internati...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
The Center for Large Landscape Conservation is proud to be part of growing collaboration across a globally important biodiversity hotspot in Central Asia that has, among other progress, yielded important scientific evidence about the presence of an endangered and charismatic species—the Persian leopard (Panthera pardus tulliana)—in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Along the remote border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the Kugitang Mountains are home to a unique mix of species and ecosystems, from Eurasian lynx and markhor—the world’s largest wild goat—to fragile cave systems and alpine grasslands. Since 2020, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation has led a collaborative effort to strengthen protected area management, monitoring, and connectivity in this region.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
The Center for Large Landscape Conservation is the hub of a growing global movement to reverse the fragmentation of the earth’s landscapes, connect wildlife habitat, and restore nature’s resilience to climate change. As global leaders in ecological connectivity conservation, we develop science, craft policy, and support planning for on-the-ground projects worldwide.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Communities and organizations work together in biosphere regions to connect people and nature, from deserts to forests, grasslands to rivers, and mountains to oceans and coasts. Together, we care for the beauty and value of our lands and waters and the benefits they bring to our communities.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
On May 8, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed a bill into law that will help keep drivers and wildlife safe on the state’s roadways. House Bill 855 creates a dedicated fund and authorizes a new state specialty license plate expected to generate up to $160,000 per year. Revenues from sales of the plate will help contribute to the planning, design, and construction of wildlife crossing structures, which have been proven to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions. The Center for Large Landscape ...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
The US-191/MT-64 Wildlife & Transportation Assessment improves the knowledge of wildlife movement and road safety along roads that connect Yellowstone to the growing Montana population centers of Bozeman and Big Sky.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Across deciduous and evergreen forests, lakes, streams and wetlands, working farms and timber lands, Québec, Canada is enormously rich in ecological diversity. However, pressures from people—residential and commercial development, climate change, and pollution—increasingly threaten the biodiversity that depends on intact habitats. Black bears and eastern wolves need wide swaths of land in their home ranges to find food and mates, wood turtles rely on unfragmented corridors to safely reac...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Oceans cover roughly 71% of Earth’s surface, yet much still remains to be discovered about their vast depths. As scientists learn more about the ocean’s diverse and complex ecosystems, they are shattering preconceived notions and showcasing the interconnectedness of land and sea. Terrestrial wildlife needs habitat connectivity for survival, often relying on ecological corridors between parks and other protected areas. Thanks to research in recent years, it is becoming increasingly clear...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
The Center’s work is part of a larger movement to not only connect landscapes, but also help ensure that waters are connected for fish and other aquatic species. In particular, the Gallatin River is known for healthy populations of rainbow trout, brown trout, and Westslope cutthroat trout, which need to move be able to move freely to remain abundant and healthy.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
When lynx, elephants, markhors, bears or elk move in search of water or food, they don’t stop to show their passports at the border or pause to consider which areas are protected; wildlife goes where it needs to survive. In this feature article, interviews with Center staff illuminate the challenges and opportunities associated with several of our current efforts to reconnect landscapes that straddle international borders.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
The recent UN Biodiversity Conference was held under the theme “Peace with Nature.” This 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD/CoP-16) attracted an unprecedented 23,000+ delegates attending official negotiations and side events inside the security perimeter of the “Blue Zone,” while the public “Green Zone” drew approximately 40,000 visitors each day. The Center for Large Landscape Conservation was honored to send four staff members to partic...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
While the increasing human population and climate change already threaten native wildlife in Kenya and Tanzania, the two countries’ populations are expected to double by 2050. Seeing these threats impacting the transboundary landscape, both governments have begun the process to conserve wildlife corridors. In partnership with WWF, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation recently led a two-day workshop providing an opportunity for representatives of the governments of Kenya and Tanzania,...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
In early September, the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) applied to the federal Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program for a discretionary grant to help fund a $26-million project that includes a new wildlife overpass, upgrades to an existing underpass, and a bridge retrofit to allow wildlife to pass safely over and beneath US Highway 191 in Southwest Montana. Through the Montana Wildlife and Transportation Partnership, MDT teamed with the Bozeman-based, nonprofit Center for Large Landsca...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Last month the Network for Landscape Conservation announced the latest round of Catalyst Fund grant awards, with 15 Landscape Partnerships receiving support to accelerate their efforts to protect the ecological, cultural, and community values of the landscapes they call home. The Catalyst Fund aims to build capacity and help local Landscape Partnerships contribute toward achieving national conservation goals.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Many of us are familiar with Biosphere 2, the research facility created in Arizona to demonstrate the viability of closed ecological systems to support and maintain human life in outer space. However, biosphere regions are model landscapes for sustainable development through collaboration and engagement. They are places designated for their unique beauty and biodiversity, and also recognized for their value to the communities of people living there, making them ideal models for large landscap...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
A plethora of evidence backs the claim that the earth and its biodiversity are at a tipping point. Yet, many feel helpless in enacting any change or stopping the trajectory of the crisis. Human beings are not built to withstand an existential threat at a constant and unrelenting battery. The term “eco-anxiety” has become common and a true mental health issue that is affecting members of society of all ages, especially those who must confront these realities daily through their work.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Stretching from the rolling Appalachian Mountains to the rugged Atlantic coastline, the landscapes of Northeastern North America feature bustling population centers, recreational havens and productive farms and timberlands as well as vast forests, abundant freshwater and impressive biodiversity. These are some of the most socio-ecologically complex landscapes in the world, increasingly recognized as critical for ecological integrity and climate adaptation at the continental and even global sc...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
At the heart of the Greater Kafue Ecosystem in Western Zambia is the 22,000-square-kilometer Kafue National Park. This is Zambia's oldest and largest park, at twice the size of Yellowstone National Park in the USA. Kafue is home to a wide range of iconic wildlife, including elephants, lions, leopards, cheetahs, wild dogs, and Africa's most diverse antelope community. This protected area faces many significant threats, but most concerning is the M9—a high-speed highway that bisects or border...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Back in 2013, conservation journalist Ben Goldfarb toured the Highway 93 wildlife crossings on the Flathead Reservation with crossings expert Marcel Huijser, Center road ecologist Kylie Paul, and others. Little did he know that that day in Montana would send him on a journey to learn more about this world of wildlife crossings, culminating in his literary feat, CROSSINGS: How Road Ecology Is Shaping The Future of Our Planet. Roads are an omnipresent form of travel, but most humans neglect to ...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
A cloud of slate gray stirring above the riverbed. The synchronous flapping of wings, eager and ready for the journey to the north. During this time of year, an estimated 3.5 billion birds take flight toward the northern U.S. and Canada as the spring migration is underway. During the long journey, they will have to contend with a pernicious source of pollution emanating from towns and cities: artificial light. Birds rely on light as an indicator of daily and seasonal change, and human light ...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
As the world trends towards rapid and unchecked development, protected areas pay the price by becoming more and more isolated. Case in point: the large region of South America that is covered by two ecosystems, the Pantanal (the largest tropical wetland) and the Gran Chaco (South America’s largest seasonally dry tropical forests) is at risk of encroachment and fragmentation. The region—the size of Texas, California, and Montana combined...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
The Center for Large Landscape Conservations is proud to be the 2024 recipient of the North American Chapter of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE-NA) Distinguished Landscape Practitioner Award. This honor recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of applied landscape ecology. Landscape ecology is an interdisciplinary science broadly concerned with the study, management, planning and design of landscapes. In the face of significant transformation of natural land...| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Roughly 50% of all highway accidents on US 89 north of Yellowstone National Park—between Livingston and Gardiner, Montana—are wildlife related. In response to this growing and dangerous problem, a locally led partnership called Yellowstone Safe Passages (YSP) just took a major step toward finding solutions by completing a comprehensive assessment of wildlife-vehicle collisions on this stretch of highway, conducted by the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and YSP partners.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Located in southeast Turkmenistan, on the border with Uzbekistan and close to Afghanistan, the Koytendag State Nature Reserve (SNR) and adjoining wildlife sanctuaries make up one of the most distinctive landscapes in Central Asia. Recently, key experts from this area and beyond gathered to discuss not only how to conserve this extraordinary natural area, but also how to ensure its key wildlife habitat areas remain connected.| Center for Large Landscape Conservation
