POSTER

Title: USAID and Partners Enhance Landscape Scale Conservation Approaches

Authors:
Diane Russell, USAID, Cynthia Gill, USAID, Hannah Fairbank, USAID, Mary Rowen, Barbara Best, Andrew Tobiason

Abstract:
The US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) biodiversity programming highlights landscape and seascape level interventions.  USAID’s centrally funded programs work to develop and refine larger scale conservation approaches, in which activities are designed and managed at the ecosystem, watershed or ecosystem process level based on biodiversity priorities and ecological, social and political factors. This poster presents key results from USAID and partners’ efforts to improve the practice of landscape/seascape conservation. Landscape conservation emphasizes strategic planning, threat assessment and response, and integrates other development sectors such as health, agriculture, and economic growth. Landscape conservation efforts cross political boundaries in several priority locations. Perhaps the most influential USAID activity, the Global Conservation Program (GCP), supports the work of the African Wildlife Foundation, Conservation International, EnterpriseWorks/Vita, The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society and the World Wildlife Fund in landscape and seascape-scale conservation. Initiated in 1999, GCP partners take action in high priority ecosystems to achieve sustainable conservation results through threat reduction, capacity building and more sustainable livelihoods. A recent evaluation of GCP highlighted success in incorporating threats-based conservation design and planning and in helping partner organizations use these approaches to manage their activities. GCP landscapes have made significant progress in addressing two important barriers to successful conservation: lack of involvement by local people and the limited management capacity of local organizations. While these initiatives are structured differently, they find that sharing planning, lessons and skills across a region are effective ways to generate wider impact.