Designing Nature’s Half:
The Blog
News and education about landscape conservation and design.
From Designing Landscapes to Keeping the Doors Open
Fifteen years ago, the National Wildlife Refuge System was helping pioneer a landscape-scale approach to conservation in a changing climate. Today, USFWS is losing people, expertise, and institutional capacity at an extraordinary rate. After 25 years in federal conservation, I believe the lesson is clear: protect what we've built—and start building conservation institutions durable enough for what comes next.
Conservation Can’t Wait For The Next Election
America’s environmental protections are being dismantled while climate change and biodiversity loss continue reshaping the landscapes conservation seeks to protect. Defending what generations before us built remains essential. But defense alone is not enough. Conservation must also build the durable institutions and capacity needed to shape the future.
AI Is Infrastructure: From Project Planning to Landscape Design
Artificial intelligence is often described as software, but a new United Nations University report argues that it is also physical infrastructure. If AI will reshape our landscapes through its demands for energy, water, transmission, and land, are project-by-project decisions still enough? This essay explores why the future of conservation may depend on moving from project-by-project planning to intentional landscape design.
World Oceans Day: What Strong Marine Protected Areas Require
What makes a marine protected area strong?
World Oceans Day 2026 focuses on the importance of strong marine protected areas, but the answer extends beyond oceans alone. Drawing on firsthand experience from the management planning process for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, this reflection explores why conservation depends not only on protection, but also on continuity. From marine protected areas to landscape-scale conservation, transformational conservation ultimately requires the institutions, governance systems, and decision processes capable of sustaining conservation across social-ecological systems and through time.