Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Alaska
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

State wildlife conservation programs provide a strong foundation for biodiversity conservation in the US, building on state wildlife action plans. However, states may miss species that are at most risk at range-wide scales, and threats such as novel diseases and climate change increasingly act at regional and national levels. Regional collaborations among states and their partners have had impressive successes, and several federal programs now incorporate state priorities. However, regional collaborations are uneven across the country and no national counterpart exists to support efforts at that scale. A national conservation support program could fill this gap, working across the conservation community to identify large-scale conservation needs and support efforts to meet them. Such a program, by providing important information-sharing and capacity-building services to advance collaborative conservation among the states and their partners across the nation, would increase both effectiveness and efficiency of conservation in the US.