The vision of the Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) Network is to conserve landscapes capable of sustaining natural and cultural resources for current and future generations. To move the LCC Network's vision forward, a strategic plan was released in late October. The plan was developed over the past six months with input from across the 22 LCCs including states, provinces, tribes, federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities, and others.

The strategic plan identifies goals, objectives and example tactics for how the LCCs will aspire to achieve the LCC Network vision collectively. The four goal areas are: conservation strategy, collaborative conservation, science and communications. Each goal has a set of objectives that help guide collaborative efforts within and across LCCs.

This strategic plan builds on existing work with the Network and serves as a companion document to individual LCC planning efforts. As a living, iterative document, the strategic plan will be updated based on the experience of individual LCCs, new information, and changes in the respective fields practiced in the LCC Network. While it will take the collective efforts of a broad range of partners, the LCC Network has already begun implementation by developing a science plan (goal 3) and a communications plan (goal 4) that are expected to be completed around the end of this year.

This is an exciting time for conservationists. Despite growing challenges and the ever-increasing complexity of natural and cultural resource management issues, the technology, science and collaborative capacity to enact and monitor effective conservation strategies at landscape scales has never been stronger.

Elsa Haubold is the National Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) Network Coordinator.