Landscape Conservation Design for the Lower St. Louis River

This project is developing a Landscape Conservation Design (LCD) approach for the Western Lake Superior region of the Great Lakes, building from an initial focus on the Lower St. Louis River. The LCD will create a decision-making framework in which local communities, working with tribal, State, and federal agencies responsible for managing natural resources, can develop a shared vision for utilization and conservation of those resources, coordinate land use and protection implementation strategies, and apply common metrics to measure and track success. The LCD is intended to align efforts to enhance complementary land-based themes of community health, economic development, and ecological integrity in the project area - where the Great Lakes begin. The overall goal of the project is to support long-term conservation of fish and wildlife resources of the Lower St. Louis River and Western Lake Superior. This 3-year project will establish the LCD framework, coordinate and facilitate the necessary representative working groups, evaluate existing spatial-based land use and conservation plans, develop land use decision-support tools and associated metrics, and recommend additional data and information collection to assess targeted outcomes of enhanced community health, economic development, and ecological integrity. The USFWS is utilizing the Minnesota Land Trust to support LCD project management through local coordination and facilitation with local agencies, organizations, and stakeholders influencing land use decisions. This is a notice of intent to award a single source cooperative agreement to the Minnesota Land Trust (MLT - Duluth, MN) without competition under justification 505DM 2.14.B.4. Competition for the award is not practical due to the unique expertise and experience that the MLT has in the coordination and facilitation of local partnerships in the Lower St. Louis River area. The USFWS requires this expertise and experience to help the USFWS and project partners design and implement a Landscape Conservation Design for land use decision-making.