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The US Department of the Interior’s (DOI’s) Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) Network served as a national conservation framework from 2010–2017. The LCC program created 22 regional self-directed partnerships covering the entire country, each one designed to understand the threats and develop collaborative strategies to conserve natural and cultural resources important to the partners operating within their geographic scope. The establishment of the LCC program was not without some controversy, but a 2015 congressionally mandated independent review of its scientific merits reached a positive conclusion. Neverthless, funding for LCCs was ended in 2017 and most were disbanded. This paper explains the need to increase US federal support for landscape-scale, collaborative conservation, and build back a better, more durable network to meet this century’s conservation challenges.

The theory and practice of connectivity conservation have matured, and we are now at the point where intentional, landscape-scale ecological networks are poised to play an indispensable role in the drive to protect and conserve at least 30% of the earth’s lands and waters by 2030. Clearly, achieving the “30x30” goal is an urgent matter and a big step toward what nature needs. The stark conclusions of the latest IPCC report leave no doubt that the 2020s will be a decisive decade for the planet, and there is broad scientific agreement that the biodiversity and climate change emergencies must be met in tandem. For conservationists, this means scaling up both our thinking and our ambitions. While formal protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs; also referred to as “conserved areas”) form the bedrock of conservation, equally important are the connections between and among these areas. The featured theme papers in this issue of Parks Stewardship Forum explain recent advances in connectivity conservation, spelling out what has to happen to hit the 30x30 target, exploring how science and policy are aligning to support the livelihoods of local communities and human rights while contributing to global environmental conservation goals, and providing concrete examples of where and how landscape-scale conservation can be applied to meet the challenges of our time.

The incorporation of ecological connectivity, the unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth, into protected area design and management is critical to achieving conservation outcomes. However, the understanding and implementation of ecological connectivity in marine protected areas (MPAs) lags behind that of their terrestrial counterparts. Here, we highlight the important role of ecological connectivity in the design and management of MPA networks through an introduction to marine connectivity and the challenges and benefits of incorporating it into management. The paper also provides guidance for policy and practice, including “rules of thumb” for incorporating connectivity into MPA design and management, and case studies. MPA managers have the potential to increase the effectiveness, adaptability, and resilience of the resources under their stewardship through the purposeful incorporation of ecological connectivity into MPA design and management.

Protected and conserved areas must play a key role in managing the interrelated global crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. We are well past understanding the problem and the need for dramatic action is clear. The draft Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity calls for at least 30% of the land and sea to be conserved in systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures by 2030. This is an enormous challenge for the world and for North America. Yet the governments of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, as well as those of 60 other countries, have committed to achieving this conservation target. The “at least 30%” figure is meant to encourage ambition and must be implemented using a range of quality considerations for protected and conserved areas. This article examines what must be considered in achieving this critical target by 2030.

In response to recent alignment of political leadership in Canada and the United States with respect to global nature conservation imperatives, a nascent and intentional dialogue has emerged on transboundary connectivity conservation between the two countries. In February and April 2021, two meetings were remotely convened, bringing together more than 160 participants from key government agencies, non-governmental organizations and Indigenous Nations engaged in conservation in both countries. Participants generated 25 concrete ideas for key next steps and 11 broad strategies that, when considered together, comprise 11 priority policy directions. Among these, four core policy imperatives include (1) prioritizing opportunities to coordinate within and among Indigenous communities, (2) creating formalized memorandums of understanding (MOUs) and funding commitments between the US and Canada, (3) mainstreaming connectivity into sectors and society, and (4) initiating systemwide changes in governance and economic structures. Together, these policy directions represent important strategies at this crucial inflection point. Only rarely are nations given historic policy alignment opportunities to redefine and reinvigorate their common conservation goals. Particularly salient is the drive to embrace transboundary connectivity conservation as a nature-based solution to climate change adaptation. We see this dialogue as a beginning in securing the peace that defines two countries and numerous Indigenous Nations that are inextricably linked by ecology and culture.

Ecological connectivity is defined by the United Nations Convention on Migratory Species to be “[t]he unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth.” To conserve these vital links within and across ecosystems and political boundaries, scientists, policymakers, and practitioners around the world are increasing and combining their efforts to provide consistent and focused solutions. The most recent Protected Planet Report reveals that 7.84% of terrestrial protected areas are connected to each other. This remains far short of the stated target of connecting the over 17% of the planet that is now officially protected in one way or another. Much more effort is also required to maintain, enhance, and restore ecological connectivity across the matrix of human uses outside of such areas. The importance of conserving ecological connectivity to protect biodiversity, increase resilience to climate change, and provide the host of other benefits that humans receive from nature is clear and actionable as science and policy align to support the livelihoods of local communities while contributing to global environmental conservation goals.

1. Current approaches to conservation may be inadequate to maintain ecosystem integrity because they are mostly based on rarity status of organisms rather than functional significance. Alternatively, approaches focusing on the protection of ecological networks lead to more appropriate conservation targets to maintain ecosystem integrity. 2. We propose that a shift in focus from species to interaction networks is necessary to achieve pressing conservation management and restoration ecology goals of conserving biodiversity, ecosystem processes and ultimately landscape-scale delivery of ecosystem services. 3. Using topical examples from the literature, we discuss historical and conceptual advances, current challenges and ways to move forward. We also propose a road map to ecological network conservation, providing a novel ready to use approach to identify clear conservation targets with flexible data requirements. 4. Synthesis and applications. Integration of how environmental and spatial constraints affect the nature and strength of local interaction networks will improve our ability to predict their response to change and to conserve them. This will better protect species, ecosystem processes, and the resulting ecosystem services we depend on.

Land‐use change is reshaping terrestrial ecosystems world‐wide and is recognized as a key driver of biodiversity loss with negative consequences on ecosystem functioning. Understanding how species use resources across landscapes is essential for the design of effective management strategies. Despite recent advances in network ecology, there is still a gap between theory and applied ecological science, and we lack the information to manage entire landscapes to maximize biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service delivery. While several pioneering approaches have tried to link ecological networks and conservation science, applied ecologists still struggle to incorporate these models into research due to their inherent complexity. We propose the application of bipartite networks principles to create species–habitat networks. This approach explicitly links multiple species and habitat resources, provides tools to estimate the importance of particular species or specific habitat in a given landscape, and quantifies emerging properties of entire habitat networks. Most existing metrics used to study properties of bipartite ecological networks can easily be adapted to investigate species–habitat relationships. The tool use is relatively simple and does not require advanced computational expertise. Synthesis and applications. One of the biggest challenges in applied ecology is managing multiple habitats for the effective conservation of multiple species. One key advantage of this proposed approach is that the scale of the derived ecological information could match the scale of landscape management interventions. The versatility, visualization power and ease of interpretation of these networks will enable application of the species–habitat network concept to a wide array of real‐world problems, such as multispecies conservation, habitat restoration, ecosystem services management or invasion ecology. In particular, species–habitat networks could be applied to identify optimal landscape compositions and configurations to design effective interventions at the landscape scale. This approach also enables the detection of emerging network properties that could also be used to test the effects of large‐scale drivers of global change upon ecosystem structure and stability. One of the biggest challenges in applied ecology is managing multiple habitats for the effective conservation of multiple species. One key advantage of this proposed approach is that the scale of the derived ecological information could match the scale of landscape management interventions. The versatility, visualization power and ease of interpretation of these networks will enable application of the species–habitat network concept to a wide array of real‐world problems, such as multispecies conservation, habitat restoration, ecosystem services management or invasion ecology. In particular, species–habitat networks could be applied to identify optimal landscape compositions and configurations to design effective interventions at the landscape scale. This approach also enables the detection of emerging network properties that could also be used to test the effects of large‐scale drivers of global change upon ecosystem structure and stability.

Community resilience is widely promoted so that communities can respond positively to a range of risks, including shocks, extreme events, and other changes. Although much research has identified characteristics or capacities that confer resilience, resilience is more than simply the sum of these. Resilience is an emergent property-the capacities are linked and act together. We present an empirical analysis of five different capacities and assess how interactions between them confer resilience in two coastal communities in Cornwall, UK. These capacities are place attachment, leadership, community cohesion and efficacy, community networks, and knowledge and learning. Based on a survey and focus group discussions, our results show that residents draw on these capacities in different combinations, enabling resilience in diverse ways. This provides a dynamic and socially nuanced perspective on community resilience as process, potentially informing theory and practice of conservation, disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, and community development.