Identifying Successes and Gaps in Collective Efforts to Identifying Successes and Gaps in Collective Efforts to Conserve Important Wildlife and Ecosystems Across the U.S.
Research Location:
Implemented: USA
Conservation Partners:
Sustainable Forestry Initiative and IUCN North America
Student Researcher
Helen Lehman-Rios, Major: Integrative ConservationFaculty Mentor
Dr. Robert RoseProject Description
To achieve national 30 x 30 conservation goals, we need to assess which lands and waters are most essential to protect, restore, and connect. Working alongside mentors from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) North America, Helen Lehman-Rios '25 is working with partners to define and map prioritized landscape conservation data to explore successes and gaps in our collective effort to meet our 30 x 30 conservation goals in the US.
To achieve the goal of protecting 30% of the world's important terrestrial and marine ecosystems by 2030 (30x30), we need to assess which lands and waters are most essential to protect, restore, and connect. Many regional landscape conservation initiatives have already conducted locally relevant analyses of conservation priorities. Many organizations, including members of the IUCN are already contributing to existing regional landscape conservation priorities, but the definitions seem to differ and the information has not been gathered and analyzed in any systematic way, for example, to ensure wildlife species, local communities, diverse perspectives, and ecosystem are represented.
Helen Lehman-Rios is working with mentors from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and IUCN North America on landscape conservation to explore how they uniquly define High Value Conservation Areas and will map their prioritization efforts. Helen will identify trends, similarities, and gaps in how we collectively define and prioritize landscapes to meet our 30 x 30 conservation goals in the US and will help us identify important partners and conservation leaders who should be included in 30 x 30 definitions and planning to maximize our collective impact. This project will help identify and communicate conservation successes as well as potential gaps impacting broad collaboration and protection of essential lands and waters.
