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38 GREAT OUTDOORS AMERICA Long Lake reaches toward Mt. Marcy in the heart of the Adirondacks, one of the nation’s oldest protected landscapes. Regional ecosystem or landscape conservation is finding new currency as a strategy for resource management. James P. Blair / National Geographic Stock
Landscape Conservation: An Effective Strategy Landscape conservation is an increasingly effective strategy for safeguarding wildlife, treasured places, and other lands of national and state significance. Blueways, water trails administered by the National Park Service, and regional water trails offer a new, popular approach to conserving river corridors. As helpful as individual conservation or habitat protection projects may be, they have not amounted to an effective approach to stemming the loss of wildlife, fisheries, and other resources to relentless pressures from development and pollution. Landscape-level or regional conservation has gained credence as a strategy for keeping viable ecosystems intact, productive, and functioning. It provides a sufficient land base to manage forests, water resources, wetlands, and other wildlife habitat for a broad range of benefits. It retains working landscapes and preserves natural and cultural landscapes that attract tourists. These, in turn, underpin the economies of small towns and rural areas. This approach has gained impetus in response to emerging science about how ecosystems function, as well as in response to the continuing concern about nonpoint source water pollution from many sources, large and small, dispersed across the land. Effectively addressing this kind of pollution on the watershed level requires participation by all landowners, public and private. Chapter 7 Landscape-level conservation is hardly a new concept. Interstate river basin commissions, with the mission of improving water quality, of necessity drew states, localities, and adjoining landowners into partnerships to achieve their purpose. The Environmental Protection Agency’s programs to restore the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and other estuaries likewise foster broad partnerships with states, communities, nonprofit groups, and private landowners. The Adirondack Park, comprising six million acres in northern New York State and dating to the late 19th century, offers an early example of a protected landscape intermingling public and private lands. Forty percent of the land is publicly owned and protected by a clause in the state constitution declaring these lands “forever wild.” The remaining 60 percent is privately held, subject to regulation by the state. The Adirondack Park Agency, created in 1972, oversees planning and regulates development. New York State continues to invest in the park, protecting more than 200,000 acres in the past two years alone, by moving quickly as timber companies put large landholdings up for sale. Federal and state wildlife managers and conservation groups, such as The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund, have learned from these experiences, applied geospatial tools to facilitate planning, and over many years adapted their conservation LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION 39
Page 1 and 2: Great Outdoors America THE REPORT O
Page 3 and 4: Foreword The Outdoor Resources Revi
Page 5 and 6: John Burcham / National Geographic
Page 7 and 8: Families that play together stay to
Page 9 and 10: network of Blueways along rivers an
Page 11 and 12: • Using the Migratory Bird Conser
Page 13 and 14: What ORRG Found Keeping outdoor res
Page 15 and 16: increases are boating, kayaking, dr
Page 17 and 18: Disparate Federal Funding Sources O
Page 19 and 20: Among them: Department of Transport
Page 21 and 22: The Gap in State and Local Funding
Page 23 and 24: State Programs Use a Variety of Fun
Page 25 and 26: Maryland Open Space Program The Out
Page 27 and 28: Overcoming Roadblocks to Effectiven
Page 29 and 30: Carr Clifton / National Geographic
Page 31 and 32: GIS Technology Can Further Conserva
Page 33 and 34: Childhood obesity has reached alarm
Page 35 and 36: outdoor learning. Cell phones progr
Page 37 and 38: The Growing Role of Private Steward
Page 39: The private, for-profit recreation
Page 43 and 44: The U.S. Forest Service Embraces La
Page 45 and 46: as an initiative to protect wetland
Page 47 and 48: Threats from Climate Change Climate
Page 49 and 50: Conflicts over Public Land Use Conf
Page 51 and 52: Recommendations: A Policy Agenda fo
Page 53 and 54: An increment of the Land and Water
Page 55 and 56: Interagency Cooperation across the
Page 57 and 58: • new excise taxes for conservati
Page 59 and 60: MEMBER REPRESENTATIVES Bob Dulli De

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