With increasing threats facing ecosystems around the world, conservationists are looking for innovative approaches to address the complex nature of transboundary issues. Large landscape conservation (LLC) extends beyond protected area boundaries and potentially national borders. Though the recognition of LLC is growing, we have a limited understanding of what supports or inhibits LLC efforts across diverse geographies, which limits the efficacy of LLC as a strategy to combat ecological threats. Networks can provide support for individual LLC initiatives through collaboration, knowledge exchange, and resource mobilization. Despite the growth in LLC initiatives around the world, there has been a lack of research assessing a network of initiatives—research that is critical to complement individual case studies. To gain a greater understanding of LLC, we conducted a survey of the Transboundary Conservation and the Connectivity Conservation Specialist Groups of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas. The survey explored key factors that inhibit or support landscape-scale governance and overall success. Findings reveal key patterns and unique aspects of LLC initiatives. Additionally, this study underscored the need to address the complexity of multiple scales of governance while meaningfully strengthening relationships at the local scale, and specifically with Indigenous populations. These findings can inform best practices and management techniques to increase successful governance by managers, researchers, and other conservation professionals to support effective and equitable LLC initiatives.

Keywords: Connectivity, large landscape, transboundary, global networks, IUCN, World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA)

Park and protected area management has a rich history of discourse, in both scholarly and managerial realms, concerning the role and public perceptions of law enforcement. For as long as national parks have existed in the United States, they have been patrolled and protected by those in uniform. Although National Park Service law enforcement rangers primarily are concerned with protection of resources, their duties continue to evolve with changes in park use trends and societal and technological advances. This paper examines how the strong presence of law enforcement in national parks impacts the diverse visitor and provides recommendations for reform. Even while the National Park Service and its partners examine outreach initiatives to attract diverse visitors, law enforcement may serve as a constraint on doing so. As the world turns its attention to policing in the United States and recent uprisings in response to the George Floyd slaying, a rigid approach to national park law enforcement in the Hashtag Era will continue to serve as a hindrance to diversity in national parks⁠—unless considerable change is undertaken. [This is a paper from “Systemic Threats to Parks & Protected Areas,” the 2020 George Wright Society Student Summit.]