Landscape Conservation Cooperatives: Bringing the Conservation Community Together with Shared Services

The Upper Midwest & Great Lakes LCC is a conservation community that develops a shared vision for sustaining natural and cultural resources in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region; cooperates in the implementation of the vision and collaborates in its refinement.  Conservation challenges, such as climate change, land use and cover change, and the spread of invasive species are occurring at an unprecedented scale and pace.  These threats are impacting the sustainability of natural and cultural resources in the region. To face these threats, the LCC provides several shared services for the conservation community including: the identification of regional priorities and conservation targets, conservation strategies and decision tools based on limiting factors, alignment of conservation efforts across jurisdictional boundaries, and organizing the scientific community toward the highest priority science needs.  Additionally, as a community, the LCC serves as a communication venue to transfer information between management and science ensuring research is addressing uncertainty in the highest priority management decisions.