Connecting the Connecticut: Partners create science-based blueprint for conserving New England’s largest river system
Photo of the Connecticut River taken from the top of Mt. Sugarloaf near Deerfield, MA. Credit: Lamar Gore/USFWS
Today the experiment has evolved into Connect the Connecticut, a collaborative effort among the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) and more than 30 partner agencies and organizations to conserve a network of lands and waters that sustain wildlife and people for generations to come.
“Connect the Connecticut builds upon a long history of collaborative conservation in the Connecticut River watershed, but it’s really about looking toward the future,” said Wendi Weber, Northeast Regional Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “It brings together powerful science and committed partners to design a resilient and connected landscape that can better withstand impacts of climate change and development.”
Encompassing New England’s largest river system, the Connecticut River watershed provides important habitat for a diversity of fish, wildlife and plants — from iconic species like bald eagle and black bear to threatened and endangered species like the shortnose sturgeon, piping plover, and dwarf wedgemussel. The watershed is also a source of clean water, recreation, food, jobs, and more, for the millions of people living in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
Using the best available science and information from the North Atlantic LCC, including an innovative modeling approach developed by the Designing Sustainable Landscapes Project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the design outlines a network of core areas, or intact, connected, and resilient places within the watershed.
But more than just a map, Connect the Connecticut offers a set of datasets and tools individuals and communities can use to make informed decisions about conservation, planning, and development in the watershed. These resources provide a broader regional context for decisions at any scale and include supporting data to help address questions related to land use and management, such as:
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Where do important ecosystems and species habitats occur and overlap?
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Where will climate change and sea level rise place the most stress on the landscape?
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Where is development most likely to occur in the coming decades?
“If you are working locally, you should know what’s going on regionally – where there is going to be energy for conservation,” said Bill Labich, a senior conservationist with New England’s Highstead Foundation.
Jenny Dickson, a wildlife biologist for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said the design doesn't replace other regional, state or local planning efforts but works to complement local knowledge into a broader state, regional, and national network to better sustain important natural resources in an era of changing landscape conditions.
