The LCC Network

In early December 2015, the National Academy of Sciences released its review of the national system of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. The North Atlantic LCC is maintaining a page with information about this important study including information pertinent to our region; click here to visit it.

The 22 LCCs collectively form a national LCC Network of natural and cultural resource managers, scientists, and interested public and private organizations—within the U.S. and across our international borders—that share a common need for scientific information and interest in conservation.

The nation’s natural and cultural resources and landscapes are essential to stabilize our quality of life and economy. Native wildlife depend on ecosystems that are threatened by land use changes and impacts such as climate change, drought, wildfire, habitat fragmentation, contaminants, pollution, invasive species and disease. The LCC Network recognizes that these challenges transcend political and jurisdictional boundaries and require a more networked approach to conservation—holistic, collaborative, adaptive and grounded in science to ensure the sustainability of America's natural and cultural resources.

As a collaborative, LCCs seek to identify best practices, connect efforts, identify gaps, and avoid duplication through improved conservation planning and design. Partner agencies and organizations coordinate with each other while working within their existing authorities and jurisdictions.

Neighboring LCCs

	The Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative is a science and management partnership to protect the valued resources and biological diversity of the Appalachian region, sustain the benefits provided by healthy and resilient ecosystems to human communities, and help natural systems adapt to large landscape-level stressors and those stressors that may be magnified by the changing climate.
	The South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (SALCC) is part of a network of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs). LCCs are applied conservation science partnerships among federal agencies, regional organizations, states, tribes, NGOs, universities and other entities within a geographic area. They are designed to inform resource management decisions in an integrated fashion across landscapes at a broader scale than any individual partner’s responsibility. The partnership will consider landscape-scale stressors, including climate change, habitat fragmentation, invasive species, and water scarcity as it attempts to provide a vision for a landscape capable of sustaining healthy populations of fish, wildlife, plants and cultural resources. The SALCC crosses six states, from southern Virginia to northern Florida.
	The Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) serves as a bridge between science and natural resources management by facilitating the flow of information among federal, state, non-governmental, and private organizations and agencies vested in natural resource conservation. Physical and social stressors like climate change, energy development, water demands, invasive species, and population growth are all threatening the ecological integrity of the upper Midwest and Great Lakes landscape. The region is home to a diverse range of fish, wildlife plants and habitats including the Great Lakes, North America’s largest freshwater resource, coastal wetlands, boreal forests, major river systems and prairie-hardwood ecosystems. Many of these ecosystems surround heavily populated urban centers. The LCC community is facilitating a collaborative approach among natural resources agencies and organizations to effectively respond to and prepare for the social, environmental and economic challenges of this dynamically

LCC Network Resources:

LCC Network Strategic Plan

• The Strategic Plan identifies goals, objectives and example tactics that support the Network’s vision and mission in the areas of conservation strategy, collaborative conservation, science, and communications. 

LCC Council

• A LCC Council of interagency, tribal, and non-governmental representatives has been named to provide national-level coordination and support for LCCs. The LCC Council will serve the LCC network by learning from them and helping to identify the ecological and institutional challenges faced by the LCCs that should be addressed at the national scale. 

Department of the Interior Secretarial Order No. 3289 

• In signing Secretarial Order No. 3289 on Sept. 14, 2009, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar directed Department of the Interior bureaus to stimulate the development of the LCC network as a response to landscape-scale stressors, including climate change.