Southern Rockies Wildlands Network Vision

World-renowned for their striking beauty and high mountain topography, the Southern Rockies are one of North America's gems. The Southern Rockies Ecoregion contains a diversity of life. From alpine tundra to ponderosa pine forests and sagebrush grasslands, over 500 vertebrate species find their home in the Southern Rockies as well as a rich variety of plants and invertebrates including over 270 species of butterflies and 5,200 species of moths. It is able to obtain this abundance partially because of its continuous stretches of wild, remote and undeveloped lands.

And yet, this biodiversity is threatened, as are many wild places in North America, due to human expansion and development: native species have been extirpated; old growth forests logged, wild and powerful rivers dammed and polluted, and land degraded.

The Southern Rockies Wildlands Network Vision calls for ecological restoration that is based on healing these ecological wounds: the Vision identifies these wounds to the land and then considers anthropogenic causes for each, addressing not only the symptoms and the disease, but also the root cause(s) of the illness. The injuries to the Southern Rockies that have been identified by the Vision include:

* Loss and Decline of Native Species
* Loss and Degradation of Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecosystems
* Loss and Alteration of Natural Processes
* Fragmentation of Wildlife Habitat
* Invasion of Exotic Species
* Pollution and Climate Change

The current state of the Southern Rockies indicates that conservation planning and work is imperative. This Vision is a comprehensive look into that work, which is based in rewilding. It provides six goals and tangible implantation tactics relating to those goals in order to make the Vision a reality. These goals include protecting and recovering native species and their habitats, reducing pollution, controlling and removing exotic species, maintaining ecological and evolutionary processes and restoring landscape connectivity.

The Vision is a prescription for the future. It recognizes that national parks, wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges have accomplished a great deal for nature. But over time, protected areas have been surrounded by roads and degraded landscapes. Now, the protected areas are too isolated to sustain viable populations of large animals, let alone many ecological and evolutionary processes.

The Southern Rockies Wildlands Network Vision is a conservation blueprint and collaborative effort of the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project, the Denver Zoo, and the Wildlands Project for the Southern Rockies of Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico.