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Integrated Cultural and Natural Resource Conservation Planning

The underlying vision and mandate for Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) is to engage federal agencies, states, and tribal communities to craft landscape-level strategies toward sustainably managing both natural and cultural resources facing the impacts of major land-use and climate changes. Within each LCC, there is a critical need to coordinate among the key representatives of cultural and natural resource management in order to integrate both resources into the broader conservation planning framework. This challenge will require applying non-traditional decision making, tools, and methodologies that span across agencies and resources to link cultural and natural considerations into a planning framework.

Working with leading research scientists, the Appalachian LCC is developing a human dimensions framework that integrates both natural and cultural resource conservation into landscape planning to inform management actions and decisions across the region. This framework will:

  1. Identify the shared goals and objectives among the natural and cultural resource communities within the Appalachians to address the impediments that must be overcome to integrate, engage, and achieve the broader vision of the LCCs;
  2. Integrate cultural values into the overarching goals and objectives of the LCC and communicate these goals to target audiences;
  3. Identify the various approaches, tools, and resource contributions the cultural resource community offers toward the major LCC objective of achieving sustainable landscapes; and
  4. Build awareness within the Appalachian conservation community to develop understanding of the integration of culturally-based values, opportunities, and cultural resources into natural resource planning in formulating the “blueprint for conservation" in the Appalachians.

Featured Research Highlights


  • Integrating Cultural Resource Preservation Priorities at a Landscape Scale: Introduction to the collaborative research program being sponsored jointly by the NPS and Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC). Tim Murtha, Penn State University

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