Setting Regional Conservation Priorities

• Karner blue butterfly ©Tom Kemmerer

  Great Lakes Program Work Setting Regional Conservation Priorities Conserving Freshwater Biodiversity Protecting Habitats for Wide-Ranging and      Migratory Species

  Canadian Portion of the Blueprint — In 2000, The Nature Conservancy released the U.S. portion of the Conservation Blueprint for the Great Lakes. The Conservancy is working with its Canadian partners, Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, to undertake a complementary effort to complete the Ontario portion of the Blueprint. With the completion of Canada, the Great Lakes region will have, for the first time, a comprehensive vision for biodiversity conservation on both sides of the border.

• Principles and Priorities — The Nature Conservancy has developed principles and priorities to guide our conservation efforts in the Great Lakes region. Great Lakes Protection and Restoration (.pdf) recommends guiding principles for any large-scale, Great Lakes restoration plan and promotes five priority funding categories to protect Great Lakes ecosystem health.

• Mapping High Quality Ecosystems in the Great Lakes Region — Working together with its partners, the Conservancy has completed a comparative mapping analysis of all projects that identify high quality ecosystems across a substantial extent of the Great Lakes region. This analysis was called for in the U.S. Policy Committee's Great Lakes Strategy 2002 and serves to identify opportunities for collaborative conservation efforts.

Contact Information:
Lois L. Morrison, Director of Conservation
Phone: (312) 759-8017, ext. 14
E-mail: lmorrison@tnc.org