||TNC's Need for Ecoregional Planning Tools Applications of
Sites revised October 11, 2001 Related Online Resources revised
October 11, 2001 The Nature Conservancy (TNC) recently initiated
a new program of ecoregion-based conservation. The goal of this
effort is to assemble regional portfolios of conservation lands
that collectively represent viable examples of all native
species and plant communities. This program aims to increase the
efficiency and effectiveness of TNC's conservation activities
through a systematic approach to regional portfolio assembly
coupled to local, on-the-ground implementation. The initial
steps in ecoregional conservation planning involve identifying
an explicit conservation goal, selecting a set of target
elements (i.e., species and communities), identifying levels of
representation for each target, and then identifying a potential
portfolio of sites. In many ecoregions where TNC works, there
are hundreds of target elements to consider, as well as a
variable number of potential con