Job plan includes the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives

The Landscape Conservation Cooperatives were identified as a vehicle to help protect jobs and the economy from the risks associated with climate change during an international meeting of Western States and Canadian Provinces this past March (http://www.pacificcoastcollaborative.org/Pages/ThirdAnnualLeadersForum.aspx).

During the GLOBE Conference on Business and the Environment in Vancouver, Canada, members of the Pacific Coast Collaborative, which included leaders from California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, issued their 2012 West Coast Action Plan on Jobs, which included a commitment to create up to a million clean-economy jobs on the West coast within the next 10 years.

Leaders promised to leverage climate science and research to help achieve better job outcomes for communities. They also promised to “encourage sharing of scientific research underway at universities, research centers, and governmental agencies and coordinate identification of priority research topics to support decision-making and minimize overlap and duplication of effort, including the Regional Climate Science Centers, Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments, and Landscape Conservation Cooperatives.”

“I was thrilled when I saw the action plan,” says Debra Schlafmann, California Landscape Conservation Cooperative coordinator. “That is exactly the mission of the LCCs, and it great to see the benefits of the LCCs recognized at such a level.”

Globe is a biennial international conference and trade fair on business and the environment.