Focus and Plan

Effective conservation begins with setting priorities and developing plans. What do you want to save, and then how do you go about saving it? LandScope America provides the background to understand how practitioners identify the places that matter most, making use of a full spectrum of conservation values – biodiversity and open space, recreation and cultural, wild and working lands and waters. 

How does what you care about relate to others’ values, and how can you prepare to put them into action?


  • Understand Conservation Priorities

    Why should we set priorities? Why are they important in the overall context of conservation? Clearly defined conservation values provide individuals and organizations with efficient and effective ways of framing on-the-ground actions that can fulfill their overarching mission and goals, whether they're working at the grassroots, regional, or national scale.

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  • Identify Priority Places: A Practitioner's Guide

    Setting conservation priorities is a multi-stage process. Conservation biologist Reed Noss offers an in-depth outline of how it identifying the values we wish to preserve can lead to the protection of both the most important and the greatest number of features in efficient and cost-effective fashion.

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  • Plan Conservation Projects

    Once you've identified the specific places you want to conserve, how do you go about protecting them? Learn the basics of site-level conservation planning and design and explore the process for protecting the places that matter most to you.

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  • Protected Areas

    How long is forever? Not all protected lands are equal. Learn about the qualitative differences that separate various types and classifications of protected status and how practitioners make use of science, planning strategies and management tools to preserve the conservation estate's diverse elements.

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  • Priority Places

    Wondering where other conservation groups and coalitions are focusing their efforts? Here are a few places that others feel merit conservation action.

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Go to the Map

Use the interactive map to zoom smoothly from a national view to state and local perspectives anywhere across the country.

Go Straight to Your State

Learn about conservation and open space in your state.

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