The U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) has selected Leslie Honey, NatureServe’s vice president for conservation services, to serve on their Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) National Council.
Honey is a 23-year leader in the conservation field, and her expertise aligns well with the National Council’s mission of supporting and promoting DOI’s Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. The nation’s 22 LCCs act as a network of resource managers and scientists who share science-based information for landscape-level conservation. In her role at NatureServe, Honey advises government agencies, conservation organizations, and private companies in natural resources and land use planning at regional, national, and international scales.
As the point person for NatureServe’s user-focused initiatives, Honey has supported some of the nation’s most prominent landscape-level assessments including:
- The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Rapid Ecoregional Assessments (REAs)
- State wildlife action plans
- The Western Governors Association’s crucial habitat assessments
- National Wildlife Refuge vulnerability assessments
- Wildlife conservation on military lands
Her recent work has centered on building regional capacity for integrating biodiversity into land-use planning, especially within the context of intensified infrastructure development for transportation and energy.
Seeking out and cultivating common interests among parties is a particular skill that Honey has demonstrated through her work at NatureServe. She supervises a highly effective community of practice on ecosystem-based management and has played an essential role in building cohesion within the NatureServe network for delivery of highly credible data, tools and expertise.
Honey’s two-year term on the LCC National Council will focus on integrating national conservation initiatives with the LCC network, promoting recognition of the LCCs as a network that enhances landscape-scale conservation, building and representing an international constituency among the members of NatureServe’s network of state and provincial programs, and catalyzing new partnerships.
“As a member of the LCC National Council I look forward to supporting coordination and collaboration at the national level and promoting recognition of the importance of the LCCs,” Honey said.
Mary Klein, president and CEO of NatureServe noted the urgency of those efforts. “Landscape-scale conservation has emerged as a national priority because so many environmental issues transcend boundaries,” she said. “I am delighted that NatureServe will be able to support the LCCs through Leslie Honey’s post on the National Council.”
Honey earned her M.Sc. in Environmental Science and Policy from Johns Hopkins University, where she focused on water-quality conditions and threats to south Florida’s ecosystems. She previously earned a B.A. in Sociology from Northeastern Illinois University and a B.S. from the University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA). While at UAA, she conducted research on the ecological succession at Portage, Byron and Byrne Glaciers near Portage, Alaska and participated on a scientific team analyzing the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on the benthic community of Prince William Sound.