Protecting Landscapes: The Changing Face of Environmental Conservation

By Paul Winters, Research Associate, and Robert Pirani, Vice President for Environmental Programs, RPA

There are a handful of places in the Northeast where, on clear, moonless nights, it is still possible to see the Milky Way in all its brilliance. These places are so dark that the dense concentration of stars in our galaxy are the brightest light source around for miles — bright enough to cast a shadow on the ground. But it's not an experience that will continue by accident. To keep it requires the active collaboration of communities, public agencies and civic organizations.

Conservation on this scale, large enough to keep out light pollution, as opposed to saving a particular farm or patch of forest that happens to come up for sale, is part of a growing environmental movement called "landscape conservation." It's a scale that is increasingly necessary, as the threats to the environment grow larger in scale.

Protecting such unique natural and cultural resources is particularly challenging in complex geographies like the Northeast megaregion, the territory from Maine to West Virginia that is home to one in six Americans. The region is expected to add 15 million people over the next 40 years, resulting in the development of an additional three million acres of land. Large-scale energy and transportation projects and the looming effects of a changing climate also are challenging traditional approaches to conservation.

Landscape conservation is proving to be the right tool at the right time. New partnerships, often led by local civic organizations and land trusts, are crossing political boundaries to protect watersheds, wildlife habitat and other landscape-scale processes. This systems-oriented approach responds to what science is saying about the way watersheds and ecosystems work. It provides the right scale for addressing the great conservation challenges of the 21st century.

To help document this emerging trend, and identify what landscape practitioners need in terms of training, resources, and tools, Regional Plan Association and America 2050, RPA's national planning program, have released a report, Landscapes: Improving Conservation in the Northeast Megaregion. The report was produced with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the U.S. Forest Service Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

One place where landscape conservation is making a difference is one of these last bastions of dark sky: Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania. The park is a small piece in a larger fabric of 2.1 million acres of public land, the largest stretch of public land between New York and Chicago (and as big as Yellowstone). The area, known collectively as the Pennsylvania Wilds, is part of the Conservation Landscape Initiative, a program of Pennsylvania's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. In the Wilds, the state agency promotes a sustainable rural economy. In partnership with local towns and businesses, it aims to improve visitor facilities and market the immense natural resources in the Wilds, attracting millions of visitors each year. These visitors spend money that flows into local businesses in a way that doesn't undercut the region's character or its natural heritage.

While the Pennsylvania Wilds is seeking to keep their communities in the dark, the Chesapeake Bay Program is hoping to shed new light on the interconnectedness of its watershed. The program is helping people see how, despite distinct local and state political boundaries, they can work together to protect the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The program, a partnership between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, other federal agencies, and the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware and New York, seeks to collectively manage the largest estuary in the country. The watershed is so huge that run-off from unsustainable agricultural practices as far north as Cooperstown, N.Y., can affect the water quality and the bay's aquatic life all the way to its mouth near Norfolk, Va., a distance of more than 400 miles.

Another example of landscape conservation is right here in the Northeast's urban heart. The National Parks Service and the City of New York are embarking on a long-term effort to jointly manage the parklands around Jamaica Bay. The two agencies manage more than 10,000 acres of parkland and about 17,000 acres of open water. For residents and visitors, jurisdiction isn't important. Children happily bicycle from one park to another. Nor are political boundaries noticed by the rich diversity of wildlife in Jamaica Bay. Osprey and sea turtles may nest on city property and hunt on federal land — and vice versa. By working together as part of the federal America's Great Outdoors initiative, the city, the National Park Service, and a host of community and civic partners are creating better amenities for everyone, human and otherwise.

Landscape conservation is still an emerging direction in the environmental movement, but it's a necessary one. The scale of our solutions needs to match the growing complexity of the problems we face.