Land Use & Open Space Conservation

Forty percent of the world’s people share the tropics with 50 percent of the world’s terrestrial life. World population has more than doubled since 1960. Land use decisions will become increasingly controversial as it soars from 7.2 billion to a projected 9.6 billion in 2050. A downloadable publication from the Smithsonian and the BIO Program of the Inter-American Development Bank, “Managing watersheds for ecosystem services in the steepland Neotropics,” offers new tools to weigh trade-offs between water, timber, biodiversity and development.

“One of the major problems with this draft Environmental Impact Report is it is not including the Brockway Campground,” said Isaac Silverman, staff attorney for environmental group Sierra Watch. “What we have are two projects proposed by the same developer on continuous landholdings owned by the same person. Common sense, CEQA (and) good planning requires an approach that considers the full impacts of these two projects together.

Clemson scientists Rob Baldwin and Paul Leonard have recently published a research article that examines the existing distribution of conservation easements in the Appalachian Mountains.

Nicole Heller is the new Director, Conservation Science at the Peninsula Open Space Trust. Read more

Nashville conservationists won Thursday. Clad in lime green shirts with bright red stop signs on the front, more than a 150 Nashvillians swarmed Metro Planning Commission’s Thursday meeting to decry a development in West Nashville. And they were pleased with the outcome. ... Radnor2River director Noah Charney echoed several residents’ sentiment that the development proposed by Nashville Highlands could mean great harm for the ecosystem and nearby neighbors.

Auburn, Calif. July 17, 2015 - Today marks the close of the comment period for the initial environmental review of massive development proposed for Tahoe's Squaw Valley, and letters are pouring in from local residents, neighboring jurisdictions, government agencies, and regional conservation groups. Sierra Watch delivered its detailed 130-page letter to Placer County this morning.

As California battles its worst drought in 1,000 years — and after massive wildfires swept across the state for two consecutive summers — a number of tribe members, scientists and U.S. Forest Service officials are working to revive traditional Native American land management practices that some believe could help contain the blazes and lessen effects of the drought. ...

When Jack Connelly first began studying the greater sage grouse in Idaho in the late 1970s, "it was not unusual to see 500 in a single flock," says the biologist, who is retired from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. "Today, it would be unusual to see 200." That dramatic decline has made the sage grouse—a large, pointy-tailed bird with showy mating habits—the subject of one of the biggest endangered species battles ever in the United States.