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The Southern Rockies Wildlands Network VISION
Monique DiGiorgio and Julia Kintsch |
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The Southern Rockies Wildlands Network VISION is a conservation
blueprint for "rewilding" the Southern Rockies of Wyoming, Colorado,
and New Mexico. Rewilding recognizes the importance of top-down regulation
to healthy ecosystems, such as the role large carnivores play in maintaining
healthy natural communities. It also emphasizes protection of large wild
areas, functional connectivity across the landscape, and the vital role of
keystone species and processes that maintain ecological integrity.
The conservation map, or network design, produced by the Vision is a
landscape-level, science driven map that designates protected core areas
and compatible-use areas connected by wildlife movement linkages.
In order to implement this Vision, the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project
is working with the Federal Highways Administration, Colorado Department
of Transportation, Colorado State University, and The Nature Conservancy
to mitigate the fragmenting effect of highways on landscapes and wildlife
in Colorado. This work integrates transportation planning and
engineering with landscape-level ecology in order to make sound
species-specific highway crossing recommendations to highway planners.
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