Message from the Chairman
It has been a good year within the Great Plains LCC (GPLCC), and I appreciate the dedication of all our partners. No single group can fully tackle the complex nature of landscape-level conservation. All of our GPLCC partners have brought their strengths to the table to help us achieve success.
Your commitment to achieving the GPLCC’s goals has positioned us for several notable accomplishments over the past year. First, the GPLCC Steering Committee approved our mission statement and governance documents, “formalizing” organizational direction.
The mission of the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative is to lead the development, facilitation and integration of science and management to ensure strategic natural resource conservation on the Great Plains.
The GPLCC funded research on several key scientific questions. One GPLCC-funded project entitled “Range-wide population estimation and monitoring for lesser prairie-chickens: Sampling design and pilot implementation” is a cooperative effort with the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. This project will develop a statistically strong sampling framework in collaboration with the five state wildlife agencies where lesser prairie-chickens are found, and test the aerial sampling methodology with the states. These survey efforts are expected to elucidate a consistent and replicable way to characterize chicken range and numbers across boundaries. In addition, the GPLCC funded projects such as “Consequences of stream fragmentation and climate change for rare Great Plains fishes,” and “Climate change and connectivity: assessing landscape and species vulnerability” which both lend predictive ability to aid in managing wildlife resources in the face of climate change. We are pleased with the diversity of projects that were proposed and funded. GPLCC-funded research should increase our understanding of Great Plains systems and the stressors on those systems.
Early on in our work together we realized that the states differed in their capacity to develop and use geospatial information, and to produce those key products that are so vital to landscape science and planning. As a result, we implemented State Science Partnership Grants to assist partners in building their own capacity to implement adaptive management and improve coordination across boundaries. As a complement, we also completed our “GIS Community Survey Report: A survey of GPLCC GIS partners” to evaluate the current status of geospatial technology within the GPLCC and to identify opportunities to build capacity where needed. It provides recommendations for GIS capacity next steps and will be available soon.
This year we launched a GPLCC Science Webinar Series, a GPLCC Newsletter and a website (www.greatplainslcc.org) to allow us to share information with interested parties as part of our communications plan.
With respect to staffing, the GPLCC has also had some recent changes. Mike Carter, Playa Lakes Joint Venture Coordinator, was contracted as our first GPLCC Coordinator. Mike has now gone back to the important mission of bird conservation. We appreciate all his efforts over the last 18 months to stand up the GPLCC Steering Committee as we came together to initiate our partnership for landscape-level conservation. The GPLCC will continue to build on this solid foundation, and has hired Heather Whitlaw as our interim GPLCC Coordinator. Heather, who works out of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lubbock WestTexas Sub-Office, brings a wealth of experience working in the Great Plains. Heather will work with the GPLCC Steering Committee, James Broska (GPLCC Science Coordinator), the various GPLCC teams and working groups, and other interested parties toward achieving the GPLCC’s mission.
I commend all our GPLCC partners for our achievements and successes this year. As we direct our attention to the upcoming year, I look forward to additional successes. Important subjects such as science capacity of partners, operational and strategic planning, and landscape-level strategies will continue to build on our collaborative efforts to provide the best science to support our conservation decisions across the Great Plains. I encourage us to all keep up the momentum. We are making a difference.
Benjamin N. Tuggle, Regional Director, USFWS Southwest Region
Chair, Great Plains LCC Steering Committee
Survey Leads to Recommendations Supporting Greater Geospatial Collaboration
Building a Great Plains LCC geomatics network to acquire, develop and share data would offer substantial benefits to those involved and make it easier to collaborate across the region. These are the findings of a recently completed survey of GIS staff within GPLCC partner organizations.
“Geospatial technologies—such as geographic information systems, global positioning systems, remote sensing, and related digital media and software—and data have become an essential tool for conservation and natural resources management, research and decision support,” says GIS Analyst Ty Guthrie and author of the report. “Because of the complexity and volume of geospatial data that needs to be managed across the widespread geography and numerous jurisdictions of the GPLCC, a coordinated approach is required.”
The survey, conducted over the summer, examined four areas of current geospatial capacity and potential opportunities: human resources, data, applications, and infrastructure. A total of twenty-six staff members from seventeen GPLCC partner organizations were surveyed, with the objective of developing a representative cross-section of the GIS community.
The survey resulted in a report outlining several recommendations for the Great Plains LCC as a whole. These included the creation of working groups to lead new data development, coordinated acquisition of third-party data, and implementation of technologies to support centralized data sharing and applications.
The recommendations are being reviewed by the GPLCC Steering Committee and will be discussed at the next committee meeting in January 2012. At that meeting, it is anticipated the committee will determine how the Great Plains LCC partnership may implement priority recommendations. The full report will be available on the website after the January meeting.
To learn more, join the GPLCC Geomatics Survey Report webinar on December 8 or contact Ty Guthrie at 303-926-0777.
2010 Science Projects Provide Tools for Resource Management
Last year, the Great Plains Landscape LCC committed $744,500 to fund 10 science research projects. The projects directly support wildlife managers and other decision makers by providing a science-based framework for addressing the many environmental stressors affecting the priority species and habitats of the Southern Great Plains. Two of the 2010 funded projects are featured in this issue.