Designing Nature’s Half:
The Blog
News and education about landscape conservation and design.
The Planet Has Already Changed. So Must We.
The United States has just experienced the second-warmest winter on record. Viewed over a longer time horizon, however, this moment is part of a much larger story. Within a single lifetime, winter temperatures across the country have risen dramatically, illustrating the accelerating pace of environmental change. As the planet’s ecological systems shift, the institutions historically responsible for conservation are also coming under strain. These converging trends raise a critical question: what kinds of regional institutions and planning approaches will be needed to design and steward sustainable landscapes in the decades ahead?
Designing the Future in the In-Between Time
In times of upheaval, long-term thinking becomes even more important. This update on the development of Designing Nature’s Half explains what’s behind the book, where the manuscript stands today, and how its focus is shifting from landscape conservation design toward governance and implementation.
Designing the Energy Transition at Landscape Scale
Renewables have overtaken coal globally. China is reorganizing its energy system at historic speed. Rare earth extraction is leaving visible scars across landscapes. The energy transition is accelerating, but who decides where its burdens fall? Land is being converted. Minerals are being extracted. Water is being withdrawn. Infrastructure is expanding. The question is no longer whether the transition will proceed, but whether the landscapes that sustain it are being deliberately designed — or altered one permit at a time.
Landscape conservation design offers a framework. Ecoregional Cooperatives offer a mechanism. The durability of the transition will depend on whether regions use them.
When Federal Climate Policy Unravels: Ecoregional Cooperation and Landscape Design
When centralized climate policy unravels, landscape-scale institutions matter more than ever. This article makes the case for ecoregional cooperation and design approaches that embed durable decision authority across regions.