Fish & Wildlife Service Expands Number of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
| 
| 
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has been funded under the Department of Interior Climate Change Adaptation Initiative to support the formation of landscape conservation cooperatives (LCCs). LCCs are public-private partnerships that recognize that land use and impacts, such as climate change, transcend political and jurisdictional boundaries, and require a more networked approach to conservation—holistic, collaborative, adaptive and grounded in science to ensure the sustainability of America's land, water, wildlife and cultural resources.1
LCCs are in various stages of development and are seeking tribal participation. The National LCC Coordinator, and the primary contacts and science coordinators for the LCC regions can be found at the FWS website: www.fws.gov/science/shc/lccinfocontacts.html.
We have followed the developments of the LCCs, and initially the plan was for seven LCCs: Alaska; Pacific; Southwest; Southeast; Northeast; Mountain-Prairie; and Midwest regions. The number of LCCs has been expanded to twenty-one. These regions include the following:
| Appalachian | Peninsular Florida |
| California | Plains and Prairie Potholes |
| Desert | South Atlantic |
| Eastern Tailgrass and Big Rivers | Southern Rockies |
| Great Basin | Upper Midwest and Great Lakes |
| Great Northern |
Aleutian and Bering Sea Islands |
| Great Plains | Arctic |
| Gulf Coast Prairie | Northwestern Interior Forest |
| Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks | Western Alaska |
| North Atlantic | Pacific Islands |
| North Pacific |
The map above depicts these regions, which follow geographical boundaries that do not necessarily correspond to political boundaries.
1 USFWS, Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, www.fws.gov/science/shc/lcc.html.