Products & Services

Our Conservation Planning Services

See our Case Studies

Conservation planning is about conserving values in an active landscape of competing uses, values, and other threats and opportunities. Whether it is single species conservation, a complete biodiversity conservation strategy, or an integrative green infrastructure approach, NatureServe’s Conservation Planning Program can meet your needs. Conservation planning and ecosystem management are complex and rapidly evolving disciplines that must be customized for each locale and situation but here are the basic services we bring to bear on your project:

  • Partnership building and facilitation to draw out the conservation values and requirements and support ongoing plan implementation and updates
  • Ecological knowledge and data development to determine specific biodiversity conservation needs
  • GIS mapping and modeling services to compile or develop the data needed for the planning process such as predictive species distribution models
  • Gap analysis to determine shortfalls in retaining conservation values based on current land use, current policies, potential threats and disturbances, and proposed policy changes or development activities
  • Conservation plan development to mitigate threats and develop an integrated plan to achieve conservation objectives in collaboration with other competing needs
  • Integration of data, knowledge, models, and analyses in the NatureServe Vista decision support system and other technology tools such as Marxan to facilitate ongoing analysis, planning, and implementation by local users
  • Additional custom analyses conducted through other NatureServe programs, members, and partners in such areas as:
    • Economic evaluations
    • Ecosystem services
    • Population viability analysis
    • Fully integrated land use or management plan development
    • Conservation area monitoring and management plans

Our conservation analysis and planning services can be applied to a large variety of projects where we and our partners have experience including:

  • Conservation planning for species or biodiversity generally including HCPs
  • Green infrastructure planning
  • Local or regional land use planning
  • Transportation infrastructure planning
  • Military resource management planning (RMP)
  • Public lands land use and resource management planning
  • Open space program prioritization mapping and processes
  • Green development siting and evaluation