Call to action item #22 - scaling up: 2011-2016 accomplishments report and next steps

Leslie, Elaine; Hardy, Kassandra

In the 100 years since the creation of the National Park Service (NPS), a network of protected areas and conservation lands have been set aside across North America – in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. This network has grown over time and includes lands managed by the NPS and other government and non-government organizations in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. This conservation network is a significant achievement worthy of recognition and celebration in this centennial year for the NPS. Through the collective efforts of many agencies and organizations, and across international boundaries, a substantial portion of the natural heritage and biodiversity of North America has been protected. Indeed, the national parks form anchors of biodiversity protection in a network of conserved lands that together contribute to this collective accomplishment, and this network exhibits the NPS role on continental-wide landscape conservation. To ensure that this legacy persists, cooperative conservation at landscape scales must continue. While ecosystems face unprecedented environmental changes and challenges, it is critical to identify, conserve, and restore the biodiversity, ecological processes, and connectivity necessary to secure our natural heritage. Geographic information on the spatial extent of ecosystem processes, migratory pathways, and mobile species can demonstrate the importance of applying collaborative conservation at geographic analyses can illustrate “gaps” in the conservation network – examples of where biodiversity hotspots appear vulnerable or connectivity across landscapess important to retain ecological viability and resilience. Since the inception of the NPS Call to Action and the Scaling Up Initiative, the NPS has made an effort to become more vocal about the need for landscape-scale conservation has successfully inspired a cultural shift within the agency that acknowledges the days of standing on a park boundary and considering only what’s within that federal boundary have to be over. In order for the NPS to effectively manage the resources that we are mandated to protect, we must work with our partners and adjacent landowners to not only understand the ecosystems as a whole, but to act on behalf of those resources comprehensively. As we move beyond our centennial year, the NPS is committed to keeping this vision of “Scaling Up” alive, but more importantly to take the strategies that we have developed and institutionalize them on the ground. This report highlights the Initiative’s accomplishments to date - publications, products, discussions, and meaningful contributions to relevant initiatives and partnerships. Scaling Up has provided the NPS with a roadmap of future landscape scale actions to include our lands and waters and skies, and our cultural and natural resources, our American values -- and more.

Call to action item #22 - scaling up: 2011-2016 accomplishments report and next steps

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